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FT MEADE 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

©ppPZ^Sttp^riglA !f a. 

Shelf i_ Oy^ 
UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 











































ONE TRAVELLER 


BY 


RETURNS 


DAVm 
cHRisri 
MURRlfK 



AUTHOR OF 

** By the Gate of the S: 
•* Cynic Fortune,**^ 
Etc., Etc. 



^sss.r.h.p-.o«-.N. 






New York- 

i U,.x, \./ l-yELiL..(5/ 


(e)J 


I4& 16 VESEY STREET 




The Diane.” 


£6 


Particular attention is invited to 
onr new French Corset, “The Diane,” 
ranging in price frc, i $1.50 to $5.50 
each. Onr cnstoinerj are cordially 
invited to examine C- :'se most excel- 
lent Paris-made Corsets, which com- 
hine new features in style and shape, 
and are absolutely controlled by ns 
for the United States. 

James McCreery $c Co., 

Broadway and 11th Street. 


STUDIES IN ENGLISH SPELLING. 


FIRST LESSON. 

A wealthy young man had a yacht, 
Disfigured with mary a spacht, 
SAPOLIO he tried, 

Which, as soon as applied. 
Immediately took out the lacht! 

SECOND LESSON. 

Ourgirl o’er the housework would sigh, 
Till SAPOLIO I urged her to trigh. 

Now she changes her tune. 

For she’s done work at nune, 

Which accounts for the light in her eigh! 

THIRD LESSON. 

There’s many a domestic embroglio — 

To describe which would need quite a 
foglio, 

Might oft be prevented 
If the housewife consented 
To clean out the house with SAPOGLIOl 


FOURTH LESSON. 

Maria’s poor fingers would ache, 

When the housework in hand she would 
tache, 

But her pains were allayed. 

When SAPOLIO’S aid, 

Her labor quite easy did mache! 

FIFTH LESSON. 

We have heard of some marvelous soaps 
Whose worth has exceeded our hoaps, 
But it must be confest. 

That SAPOLIO’S the best 
For with grease spots it easily coaps! 

SIXTH LESSON. 

The wife of a popular colonel 
Whose troubles with “helps” were etol- 
onel 

Now her leisure enjoys 
For the “ new girl” employs 
SAPOLIO in housework diolonell 


LOVELL LIBRARY ADVERTISER. 


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WE CLAi that it is the only Piano in the world 
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WE O Ies ^ I Piano in the world 

with a patent harp-stop attachment. 

WE CLAIM that it is the only first-class Piano 

sold at an honest price. 


WE CLA 


that for purity of tone and phenomem 
al durabihty it cannot he excelled. 


WE CLAIRl that it is the only Piano which im- 
proves after two or three years’ use, 
and retains its full power and tone. 


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For PILES, BTJEKS, NEU- 
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Used Internally and Externally. 

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JOHN W. LOVELL CO., Publishers, 

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NEW YORK : 

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fSmM' 



LOVELL’S LIBBART 


COMPLETE CATALOG-UE BY AUTHORS. 

Lovhll’h Library now contains the complete writings of mo^ of the best stan^rd 
authors, such as Dickens, Thackeray, Eliot, Carlyle, Ruskin, Scott, Lytton, Black, etc., 

^^*Each number is issued in neat 12mo form, and the type will bo found larger, and the 
paper better, than in any other cheap series published. 


P. O. Box 1992. 


JOHN W. LiOVELIj company, 

14: and 16 Vesey Street, New York. 


BY AUTHOR OF “ AUDIE’S HUS- 
BAND ’’ 

1106 Jessie 20 

BY G. M. ADAM AND A. E. 
WETHERALD 

846 An Algonquin Maiden 20 

BY MAX ADELER 

295 Random Shots 20 

825 Elbow Room 20 

BY GUSTAVE AIMARD 

560 The Adventurers 10 

667 The Trail-Hunteiu-*>**» 10 

678 Pearl of the Andes 10 

1011 Pirates of the Prairies 10 

1021 The Trapper’s Daughter 10 

1082 The Tiger Slayer 10 

1045 Trappers of Arkansas 10 

1052 Border Rifles 10 

1063 The Freebooters 10 

1069 The White Scalper 10 

1071 (Inide of the Desert 10 

1075 The Insurgent Chief * * 'J 1 

1079 The Flying Horseman 10 

1081 Last of the Ancas ’ * ' Jn 

1086 Missouri Outlaws 10 

1089 Pi-airie Flower 10 

1098 Indian Scout 10 

1101 Stronghand 10 

1103 Beo Hunters 10 

1107 Stoneheart 10 

1112 Queen of the Savannah 10 

1115 The Buccaneer Chief 10 

1118 The Smuggler Hero " , n 

1121 Ti.J Rebel Chief 10 

BY MRS. ALDERDICE 

346 An Interesting Case 20 

BY MRS. ALEXANDER 

62 Tlie Wooing O’t, 2 Parts, each 15 

99 The Admiral’s Ward 20 

209 'I'he Executor 2 ) 

3-11) Valerie's Fate 10 

664 At Bay 1] 

746 Beaton’s Bargain 20 

777 A Second Life 20 

71K) Maid. Wife, or Widow 10 

840 By Woman’s Wit 20 

995 Which Shall it Bo? 20 

1044 Forging the Fetters 1^ 

1105 Mona’s Choice 20 


BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN 

419 Fairy Tales 20 

BY F. ANSTEY 

Vice Versii; or, A Lesson to Fathers. .20 

Tije Giant’s Robe 20 

Black Poodle, and Other Tales 20 

The Tinted Venus 15 

A Fallen Idol 20 

BY EDWIN ARNOLD 

The Light of Asia 20 

Pearls of the Faith 15 

Indian Song of Songs 10 

BY T. S. ARTHUR 

Woman’s Trials 20 

The Two Wives 15 

Married Life 15 

The Ways of Providence 15 

Home Scenes 15 

Stories for Parents 15 

Seed-Time and Harvest 15 

Words for the Wise 15 

Stories for Young Housekeepers. . . .15 

Lessons in Life 15 

Off-Hand Sketches 15 

Tried and Tempted 15 

BY EDWARD AVELING 

1006 An American Journey 80 

BY W. E. AYTOUN 

Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers 20 

BY ADAM EADEAU 

Conspiracy 25 

BY SIR SAMUEL BAKER 

Cast up by the Sea 20 

Bine and Hmind in Ceylon 20 

Eight Years’ Wandering in Ceylon. .20 

BY C. W. BALESTIER 

A Fair Device 20 

Life of J. G. Blaine 20 

BY R. M. BALLANTYNE 

The Red Eric 20 

The Fire Brigade. ~0 

Erling the Bold . 

Deep Down 20 

BY S. BARING-GOULD 

876 Little Tn’penny 10 

1061 Red Spider 20 


30 

394 

453 

616 

7.55 


436 

455 

472 


406 

507 

518 

588 

515 

554 

563 

568 

574 

579 

582 

585 


351 

750 

206 

227 

28:3 


381 

405 


215 

226 

289 

241 


1 


LO 




S LIBRAKY. 


BY FRANK BARRETT 

1009 The Great Hesper 20 

BY GEORGE MIDDLETON BAYNE 

4(50 Galaski 20 

BY AUGUST EEBEL 

712 Woman 30 

BY MRS. E. BEDELL BENJAMIN 

7-18 Our Roman Palace 20 

1077 Jim, the Pardon 20 

BY A. BENRIMO 

470 Vic 15 

BY E. BERGER 

901 Charles A u Chester 20 

BY W. BERGSOE 

77 Pillone 15 

BY E. EERTKET 

366 The Sergeant’s Legacy 20 


18 

103 

257 

268 

384 

699 

842 

847 

1002 

1109 


BY WALTER BESANT 

They Were Married 10 

Let Nothing You Dismay 10 

All in a Garden Fair 20 

When the Ship Comes Home 10 

Dorothy Forster 20 

Self or Bearer 10 

The World Went Very Well Then . .20 

The Holy Rose 10 

To Call Her Mine 20 

Katharine Regina 20 


BY BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON 

3 The Happy Boy 10 

4 Arne . 10 

BY WILLIAM BLACK 

40 An Adventin-e in Thule, etc .10 

48 A Princess of Thule 20 

82 A Daughter of Heth. 20 

85 Shaudon Bells 20 

‘ 03 Macleod of Dare 20 

136 Yolande 20 

1 42 Strange Adventures of a Phaeton. . . 20 

148 White Wings’. 20 

153 Sunrise, 2 Parts, each 15 

178 Madcap Violet 20 

180 Kilmeny 20 

182 That Beautiful Wretch 20 

184 Green Pastures, etc 20 

188 In Silk Attire 20 

213 The Three Feathers 20 

216 Lady Silverdale’s Sweetheart 10 

217 The Four MacNicols 10 

218 Mr. Pisjstratns Bro'Am, M.P 10 

225 Oliver Goldsmith 10 

232 Monarch of Mincing T,ane 20 

456 Judith Shnkes])oare 20 

584 Wise Women of luveniess 10 

678 White Heather 20 

958 Sabina Zemhra 20 

BY LILLIE D. BLAKE 

105 Woman’s Place To-day 20 

597 Fettered for Life 25 

BY KEMPER BOCOCK 

1078 Tax the Area 20 


851 

851 

93(5 

955 

955 

961 

1031 

J035 

1036 

1037 

1038 

1039 

1040 


23 

230 

781 

8-11 

1022 

1023 

1024 

1025 

1026 
1027 


BY E. D. BLACKMORE 

Lorna Doono, Part I 

r.orna Doone, Part II. 

Maid of Sker 

Cradock Nowell, Part I 

Cradock Nowell, Part II 

Springhaven 

Mary Anerley, 


20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

Alice Lorraine 20 

Cristowell 20 

Clara Vaughan 20 

Cripps the Carrier 20 

Remarkable History of Sir Thos. 

Upmore .20 

Erema ; or, My Father’s Sin ..... 20 

BY RHODA BROUGHTON 

Second Thoughts 20 

Belinda 20 

Betty’s Visions 15 

Dr. Cupid 2(1 

Good-Bye, Sweetheart 20 

Red as a Rose is She 20 

Cometh up as a Flower 20 

Not Wisely but too Well 20 

Naiicy 20 

Joan 20 


BY ANNIE BRADSHAW 

716 A Crimson Stain 20 

BY CHARLOTTE BREMER 

448 Life of Fredrika Bremer 20 

BY CHARLOTTE BRONTE 

74 Jane Eyre 20 

897 Shirley 20 

BY MISS M. E. BBADDON 

The Golden Calt 2C 

Lady Audi ey’s Secret 20 

Phantom Fortune .20 

Under the Red Flag 10 

An Ishmaelite 20 

Aurora Floyd 20 

To the Bitter End 20 

Dead Sea Fruit 2C 

The Mistletoe Bough 20 

Vixen 20 

The Octoroon 20 

Mohawks 20 

Cue Thing Needful 20 

Barbara; or,. Splendid Misery 20 

John March mont’s Legacy 20 

Joshua Haggard’s Daughter 20 

Taken at the Flood 20 

Asphodel 20 

The Doctor’s Wife 20 

Only a Clod 20 

Sir Jasper's Tenant 20 

Lady’s Mile 20 

Birds of Prey .... 20 

Charlotte’s inheritance 20 

Rupert Godwin 20 


88 

104 

214 

266 

444 

555 

688 

596 

698 

766 

78:3 

814 

868 

869 

870 

871 

872 

873 

877 

878 

879 

880 
881 
882 
88:3 
886 

887 

888 

889 

890 

892 

893 

894 


Strangers and Pilgrims 20 

A Strange World 20 

Mount Royal 20 

Just As I Am 20 

Dead Men's Shoes 20 

Hostages to Fortune .20 

Fenton’s Quest 20 

The Cloven Foot 20 


2 


loyell’s library. 


BY ELIZABETH BARRETT 
BROWNING 

421 Aurora Leigh 20 

479 Poems 35 

BY ROBERT BROWNING 

652 Selections from Poetical Works 20 

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

443 Poems 20 

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN 

818 The New Abelard 20 

690 The Master of the Mine 10 

BY JOHN BUNYAN 

200 ^The Pilgrim’s Progiess 20 

BY ROBERT BURNS 

430 Poems 20 

BY REV. JAS. S. BUSH 

113 More \Vord8 about the Bible 20 

BY E. LA3SETER BYNNER 

100 Nimport, 2 Parts, each 15 

102 Tritons, 2 Parts, each 15 

BY THOMAS CAMPBELL 

620 Poems 20 

BY LEWIS CARROLL 

Alice’s Adventuros 20 

Through the Looking-Glass 20 

BY THOMAS CARLYLE 

History of French llcvolntion, 2 

Parts, each 25 

Past and Present 20 

The Diamond Nocklaco : and Mira- 

bean 20 

Chartism 20 

Sart(jr Rosiirtus 20 

Early Kings of Norway 20 

Joan Paul Friedrich llichter 10 

Goethe, and Miscollivneous Essays. . ,10 

Life of Heyne 15 

Voltaire and Novalis 15 

Heroes, and Hei-o- Worship 20 

Signs of the Times 15 

German Literature 16 

Portraits of John Knox 16 

Count Cagliostro, etc 15 


480 

431 ' 


486 


494 

500 


608 

61)8 

614 

620 

522 

625 

628 

611 

546 

650 

601 

671 

678 


20 

20 

20 

20 


960 


190 

820 

821 

822 

823 

824 

825 
820 
s.ij'r 
828 
829 


20 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 


422 


Frederick the Great, Vol. I 


.20 


680 

Ik 

II 

il 

Vol. 1 1.... 

. ... 20 

501 

The Pilot 

691 

it 

i€ 

ii 

Vol. III. . . 

....20 

606 

Wing and Wing 

610 

4i 

H 

ii 

Vol. IV.. 

....20 

612 

Wyandotte 

619 

ii 

ii 

tt 

Vol. V. . . . 

....20 

517 

Heidenmauer 

622 

Cl 

ii 

it 

Vol. vr. . 

....20 

519 

Tho Headsman 

626 

41 

ii 

It 

Vol. vri.. 

....20 

521 

The Bravo 

628 

Ci 

It 

ii 

Vol. VIII. 

....20 

527 

Lionel Lincoln ... 


BY ROSA NOUCHETE CAREY 

66^J For Lilias 

911 Not Like other Girls 

OlS-^^lobert Ord’s Atonement 

959 Wee Wific 

Wooed and Married 

BY WM. CARLETON 

Willy Reilly 

Shane Fadh’s Wedding 

Larry McFarland’s Wake 

The Party Fight and Funeral 

The Midniglit Mass 

Phil Piircel 

An Irish Oath 

Going to Maynooth 

Phelim O’Toole’s Courtship 

Dominick, the Poor Scholar 

Neal Malone 

BY “CAVENDISH” 

Cavendisb Card Ewsaya 

BY CERVANTES * 

Don Quixote 

BY L. W. CKAMPNEY 

Bourbon Lilies 

BY VICTOR CIIEBBULIEZ 

Samuel Brohl it Co 

BY REV. JAS. FREEMAN CLARK 

167 Anti-Slavery Days 20 

BY CRI8TABEL R. COLERIDGE 

1028 A Near Relation 20 

BY S. T. COLERIDGE 
523 Poems 30 

BY J. FENIMORE COOPER 

fr‘’43,'he Last of t he Mohicans 20 

53 "The Spy 20 

Tho Pathflnder 20 

Homeward Bound 20 

Home as Found 20 

Tho Deerslayer 30 

The Prairie 20 

The Pioneer 25 

Tho Two Admirals 20 

The Water -Witch 20 

Tile Red Rover 20 


20 ! 


417 

119 

242 


16 

80 

20 

20 


865 

378 

411 

463 

467 

471 

484 

488 

491 


.20 

,20 

.20 


20 

20 


630 

638 

636 

613 

646 

649 

652 

656 

058 


661 

1088 


1090 


Life of John Sterling 20 

Latter-Day Pamphlets 20 

Life of Sell il ler 20 

Oliver Cromwell, Vol. 1 25 

“ “ Vol. II 26 

“ “ Vol. Ill 25 

Characteristics and other Essays. . . 15 
Corn LawRhymesand other Essays. 15 
Baillie the CovenanUr and other Es- 
says 15 

Dr. Francia and other Essays 15 

Wilhelm Moister’s Apprenticeship, 

2 Parts, each 20 

Wilhelm Meister’s Travels 20 


529 

532 

539 

513 

5-18 

553 

559 

5(52 


' r,7i 


) ( 


0 


576 

587 

601 

603 

611 


Wept of Wish-ton-Wish 20 

Afloat and Ashore 20 

Mih's Wallineford 20 

The Monikins 20 

Mercedes of Castile . .20 

Tho Sea Lions 20 

Tiic Crater 20 

Satanstoe ^ 

The Chain-B< aror 20 

Ways of the Hour 20 

Precaution 20 

Redskins 25 

Jack Tier 20 


LOVELL’S LIBRARY. 


BY EEETHA M. CLAY 


183 Her Mother’s Sin 20 

277 Dora Thorne 20 

287 Beyond Tardon 20 

420 A Broken Wedding-Ring 20 

42') llepented fit Leisure 20 

458 Sunshine and Roses 20 

4(55 The Bari’s Atonement 20 

474 A Woman’s Temptation 20 

476 Love Works Wonders 20 

558 Fair but False 10 

50«3 Between Two Sins 10 

651 At War with Herself 15 

609 Hilda 10 

6S9 Her Martyrdom 20 

692 Lord Lynn’s Choice. 10 

604 The Shadow of a Sin 10 

695 Wedded and Farted 10 

700 In Cupid’s Not 10 

701 Lady llamcr’s Secret 20 

718 A Gilded Sin 10 

720 Between 'I'wo Loves 20 

727 For Another’s Sin 20 

730 Romance of a Young Girl 20 

733 A Queen Among.st Women 10 

733 A Golden Dawn 10 

739 Like no Other Love 10 

740 A Bitter Atonement 20 

744 Evelyn’s Folly 20 

752 Set in Diamonds 20 

764 A Fair Mystery 20 

800 Thorn.s and Orange Blossoms 10 

801 Romance of a Black Veil 10 

803 Love’s Warfare 10 

804 Madolin’s Lover 20 

806 From Out the Gloom 20 

807 Wliich Loved Him Best 10 

808 A True i\lagd;ilen 20 

809 The Sin of a Lifetime 20 

810 Prince Charlie’s Daughter 10 

811 A Golden Heart 10 

812 Wife in Name Only 20 

815 .A Woman’s Error 20 

896 Marjorie 20 

922 A Wilful Maid 20 

923 Lady Castlemaine’s Divorce 20 

926 Claribel’s Love Story 20 

928 Thrown on the World 20 

929 Under a Shadow 20 

930 A Struggle for a Ring 20 

982 Hilary’s Folly 20 

933 A Haunted Life 20 

934 A Woman’s Love Story 20 

969 A Woman’s War 20 

984 ’Twixt Smile and Tear 20 

985 Lady Di'ina’s Pride 20 

986 B-lle of Lynn 20 

988 Marjorie’s Fate 20 

989 Sweet Cymbelino 20 

1007 Redeemed bt’’ Love yO 

3012 The Squire's Darling 10 

1013 The Mystery of Colde Fell 20 

1030 On Her Wedding Morn 10 

1031 The Shattered Idol 10 

3033 Letty Leigh 10 

1041 The Mvsterv of the Holly Tree 10 

1042 The Earl’s Error 10 

1043 Arnold’s Promise 10 

1051 An Unnatural Bondage 10 

1064 The Duke’s Secret 20 


BY WILKIE COLLINS 


8 The [Moonstone, Parti 10 

9 The Moonstone, Part II 10 

24 The New Magdalen 20 

87 Heart and Science 20 

418 “I Say No” 20 

437 Tales of Two Idle Apprentices .15 

683 The Gho.st’s Touch 10 

686 My Ladv’s Money .10 

722 The Evil Genius 20 

8;39 I’he Guilty River 10 

957 I'he Dead Secret 20 

996 The Queen of Hearts 20 

1003 The Haunted Hotel 10 

BY HUGH CONWAY 

429 CalledBack 15 

462 Dark Days 16 

(■<12 Carrihton’s Gift 10 

G17 Paul Vargas: a Mystery 10 

631 A Family Affair 20 

007 Story of a Sculptor 10 

672 Slings and Arrows 10 

715 A Cardinal Sin 20 

745 Living or Dead 20 

7.50 Somebody’s Story 10 

9(58 Bound by a Spell 20 

BY C. H. W. COOK 

1099 The True Solution of the Labor 
Question 10 

BY KINAHAN COEITWALLIS 

409 Adrift with a Vengeance 25 

BY GEOKGIANA M. CEAIE 

1006 A Daughter of the Peojdc 20 

BY E. CEISWELL 

350 Grandfather Lickshingle 20 

BY E. H. DANA, JE. 

464 Two Years before the Mast 20 

BY DANTE 

345 Dante’.s Vision of Hell, Purgatory, 

and Paradise 20 

BY ELOEA A. DAELING 

260 Mrs. Darling’s War Letters 20 

BY JOYCE DAEEELL 

315 Winifred Power 20 

BY ALPHONSE DAUDET 

478 Tart nrln of Tarascon 20 

604 Sidonie 20 

613 Jack 20 

615 The Little Good-for-Nothing 20 

645 The Nabob 25 

BY EEV. C. H. DAVIES, D.D. 

453 Mystic Lon<lon 20 

BY THE BEAN OF ST. PAUL’S 

431 Life of Sjicnser 10 

BY C. DEBANS 

475 A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing 20 

BY EEV. C. F. DEEMS, D.D. 

704 Evolution 20 

BY DANIEL DEFOE 

428"'’^Ttobinson Crusoe 26 


4 


LOVELL’S LIBRARY. 


BY THOS. BE QTJINCEY 

SO The Spanish Nun 10 

1070 Confessions of an English Opium 

Eater 20 

BY GAEL DETLEF 

29 Irene; or, The Lonely Manor 20 

BY CHAELES DICKENS 

10 ^"^liver Twist 20 

38 A Tale of Two Cities 20 

75 Child’s History of England ^ 

91 Pickwick Papers, 2 I’arts, each 20 

1^' The Cricket on the Hearth 10 

144 Old Curiosity Shop, 2 Parts, each... 15 

150 Barnaby Rudge, 2 Parts, each 15 

1.58 David Copperfield, 2 Parts, each. . . .20 

170 Hard Times 20 

192 Great Expectations 20 

201 Martin Chuzzlcwit, 2 Parts, each. . . .20 

210 American Notes 20 

219 Dombey and Son. 2 Parts, each 20 

223 Little Uoirit, 2 Parts, each. 20 

228 Our Mutual Friend, 2 Parts, each... 20 

2^11 Nicholas Nicklehy, 2 Parts, each 20 

234 Pictures from Italy 15 

237 The Boy at ilugby 10 

244 Bleak House, 2 P.arts, each 20 

246 Bketches of the Young Couples. 10 

261 M aster Humphrey's Clock 10 

267 The Haunted House, etc 10 

270 The Mudfog Papers, etc 10 

273 Sketches by Boz 20 

274 A Christmas Carol, etc 15 

282 Uncommercial Tr.avcllcr 20 

288 Somebody’s Luggage, etc 10 

293/ The Battle of Life, etc 10 

297 Mystery of Edwin Drood 20 

298 Beprinted Pieces 20 

802 No Thoroughfare 15 

437 Tales of Two Idle Apprentices 10 

BY PROF. DOWDEN 

404 Life of Southey 10 

BY JOHN DRYDEN 

498 Poems 30 

BY THE “DUCHESS” 

68 Portia 20 

76 Molly Bawn 20 

78 Phyllis 20 

86 Monica 10 

90 ilrs. Geoffrey 20 

92 Airy Fairy Lilian 20 

126 Loys, Lord Berosford 20 

132 Moonshine anti ]\Iarguerites 10 

- >-4^8.>4;'aith and Unfaith 20 

168 Beauty’s Daughters 20 

2S4 Rosamoyne 20 

451 Doris 20 

477 A Week In Killarney 10 

530 111 Durance Vile 10 

618 Dick’s Sweetheart ; or, “ O Tender 

Dolores” 20 

621 A Maiden all Forlorn 10 

624 A Passive Crime 10 

721 Lady Brnnksmere 20 

735 A Mental Struggle 20 

737 The Haunted Chamber 10 

792 Her VV'cek's Amusement 10 

802 Lady Valworth's Diamonds 20 

1065 A Modern Circe 20 

1072 The Duchess 20 


BY F. DU BOISGOBEY 

1018 The Condemned Door 

1080 The Blue Veil; or. The Crime 

the Tower 

1120 The Matapnn Affair. 


of 


,20 

E 

.20 

,20 


BY LORD DUFFERIN 

95 Let ters from High Latitudes 20 

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JR. 

992 Camille 10 

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS 

761 Count of Monte Cristo, l^avt 1 20 

761 Count of Monte Cristo, Part II 20 

775 The Three Guardsmen 20 

786 Twenty Years After 20 

884 The Sou of Monte Cristo, Part I 20 

884 The St»n of Monte Cristo, Part II.. .20 

885 Monte Cristo and His Wife 20 

891 Counte.ss of Monte (.'nsto, Part I. . .20 

891 Countess of M«mte Cristo, Part II. ..20 

998 Beau Tancr de 20 

BY MRS. ANNIE EDWARDS 

681 A Girton Girl 20 

BY M. BETHAM-EDWARB8 

203 Disarmed 16 

663 The Flower of Doom 10 

1005 Next of Kin 20 

BY GEORGE ELIOT 

66 Adam Bede, 2 Pjirts, each 16 

69 Amos Barton 10 

71 Silas Marner 10 

79 Komola, 2 Parts, each 15 

149 Janet’s Repentance 10 

151 Felix Holt 20 

174 Middlemaroh, 2 Parts, each 20 

195 Daniel Deronda, 2 Parts, each 20 

202 Theophrastus Such 10 

205 The SiRnni- h Gyp.sy,and other Poems20 

207 The Mill on the Fhjss, 2 Parts, each. 16 

208 Brother Jacob, 10 

374 Essays, and Leaves from a Note- 

Book 20 

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

373 Essays 20 

ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS. 
EDITED BY JOHN IIORLEY 

318 Bunyan, by J. A. Fronde 10 

407 Bnrke, by John Morlcy 10 

334 Burns, by Principal Shairp 10 

347 Byron, by Profo,ssor Nichol .10 

413 Chaucer, by Prof. A. W. Ward 10 

424 Cowper, by Goldwin Smith 10 

377 Defoe, by William Minto 10 

383 Gibbon, by J. C. Morrison 10 

225 Goldsmith, by William Black 10 

369 Hume, by Professor Huxley 10 

iOl .Johnson, by TiCbIIc Stephen 10 

Lofkc, by Thom.os Fowler 10 

392 Milton, by Mark Pattison 10 

398 Pope, bv Leslie Stej^V en 10 

364 Scott, by 11. H. Hutton 10 

I 361 Shelley, by J. Symonds 10 

i 404 Soul hey, by Profespor Dowden. ...10 

I 431 Spenser, by the Dean of St. Paul’s.. 10 

I 344 Thackeray, bv Anthony Tro11o{)e. . ,10 

i 410 Wordsworth, by F, Myers 10 


LOVELL’S LIBRARY 


BY B. L. FARJEON 

243 Gautran ; or, House of White Shad- 


ows 20 

654 Love’s Harvest 20 

8T4 Nine of Hearts 20 

BY HAEKIET EASLEY 

473 Christmas Stories 20 

. BY r. W. FARBAB, D.D. 

1 9 Seekers af ter God 20 

60 Early Days of Christianity, 2 Parts, 
each 20 

BY GEOBGE MAHNVILLE FENN 

1004 This Man’s Wife 20 

lOGO The Bag of Diamonds 20 

BY OCTAVE FEUILLET 

41 A Marriage lu Jligh Life 20 

987 Romance of a Poor Young Man .... 10 

BY MBS. FOBBESTEB 

7G0 Fair Women 20 

818 Once Again 20 

843 My Lord and My Lady i 20 

8^14 Dolores 20 

860 My Hero 20 

859 Viva 20 

8()0 Omnia Yanitas 10 

85U Diana Carew 20 

862 From Olympus to Hades 21) 

863 Rhona 20 

864 Roy and Viola 20 

865 June 20 

866 Mignon 20 

867 A Young Man’s Fancy 20 

BY FRIEDBICH, BABOIT BE LA 

MOTTE FOUQUE 

711 Undine . 10 

BY THOMAS FOWLER 

380 Life of Locke 10 

BY FRANCESCA 

177 The Story of Ida 10 

BY R. E. FRANCILLON 

319 A Real Queen 20 

856 Golden Bells 10 

BY ALBERT FBANKLYN 

122 Ameline de Bonrg 16 

BY L. VIRGINIA FRENCH 

485 My Roses 20 

BY J. A. FROUBE 

348 Life of Bnnyan 10 


BY HENRY GEORGE 

52 Progress and Poverty 

390 Land Question 

3')3 Social Problems 

796 Property in Land 

BY CHARLES GIBBON 

57 The Golden Shaft 

BY J. W. VON GOETHE 


342 Goethe's P’aust 2(1 

343 Goethe's Poems 2C 

1088 Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, 

2 Parts, each 20 

1090 Wilhelm Meister’s Travels 2() 

BY NIKOLAI V. GOGOL 

1016 Taras Bulh.n 20 

BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

51 Vicar of Wakefield 10 

362 Plays and Poems 20 

BY MRS. GORE 

89 The Dean’s Daughter 20 

BY JAMES GRANT 

49 The Secret Despatch 20 

BY HENRI GREVILLE 

ICOl Frankley ...20 

BY CECIL GRIFFITH 

732 Victory Deane 20 

BY ARTHUR GRIFFITHS 

709 No. 99 10 

THE BROTHERS GRIMM 

221 Fairy Tales, Hlnstrated 20 

BY LAURENCE GEONLUND 

1096 The Co-operative Commonwealth. .30 

BY LIEUT. J. W. GUNNISON 

440 History of the Mormons 16 

BY F. W. HACKLANDER 

606 Forbidden Fruit 20 

BY ERNST HAECKEL 

97 India and Ceylon 20 

BY H. RIDER HAGGARD 

813 King Soloinon'.s Mines 20 

848 She 20 

876 The Witch’s Head 20 

900 Jess 20 

941 Dawn 20 

1020 Allan Qnatermain 20 

IKjO Tale of Three Lions 10 

BY A. EGMONT HAKE 


BY EMILE GA30EIAU 

114 Mnnsieur Locoq, 2 Parts, each.. . . . .20 


116 The Lerouge Case 20 

120 Other People's Money 20 

129 In Peril of His Life 20 

13vS The Gilded Clique 20 

155 Mystery of Orcival 20 

lf»l l*rnmise of .Marriage 10 

258 File No 113 20 

1119 The Little Old Man of the Bati- 

gnollea 20 

1123 The Count’s Millions, Parti 20 

“ “ “ Part II 20 


371 The Story of Chinese Gordon 20 

BY LUDOVIC HALEVY 

15 L’Abbe Constantin 20 

BY THOMAS HARDY 

48 Two on a Tower 20 

1.57 Romantic Adventures of a Milk- 
maid 10 

749 The Mayor of Casterbridge 20 

9.56 The Woodlanders 20 

964 Far from the Madding Crowed 20 

BY MARION HARLAND 

107 Housekeeping and lIoHiemakiug.. . . 15 


6 


LOVELL’S LI15RARY, 


' BT JOHN HAEBISON AND M. 


COMP’l'ON 

414 Over the Summer Sea 20 

BY J. B. HARWOOD 

269 One False, both Fair 20 

BY JOSEPH HATTON 

7 Clytie oq 

137 Cruel London ’ .20 

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

370 Twice Told Tales 20 

376 Grandfather’s Chair 20 

BY MARY CECIL HAY 

466 Under the Will 10 

566 The Arundel Motto /20 

590 Old Myddleton's Money 20 

737 A Wicked Girl 10 

971 Nora’s Love To t 20 

972 The Squire’s Le^jacy ^20 

973 Dorothy’s Venture 20 

974 My First Offer 10 

975 Back to the Old Home 10 

976 For Her Dear Sake 20 

977 Hidden Perils 20 

978 Victor and Vanquished 20 

1029 Brenda Yorke 10 

BY MRS. FELICIA HEMANS 

583 Poems 30 

BY DAVID J. HILL, LL.D. 

533 Principles and Fallacies of Social- 

i»m 15 

BY M. L. HOLBROOK, M.D. 

356 Hygriene of the Bruin 25 

BY MRS. M. A. HOLMES 

709 Woman against Woman 20 

743 A Woman’s Vengeance 20 

BY PAXTON HOOD 

73 Life of Cromwell 15 

BY THOMAS HOOD 

511 Poems 80 

BY HORRY AND WEEMS 

36 Life of Marion 20 

BY ROBERT HODDIN 

14 The Tricks of the Greeks 20 


BY JOHN W. HOYT, LL.D. 


535 Studies in Civil Serviee 15 

BY THOMAS HUGHES 

61 Tom Brown’s School Days 20 

186 Tom Brown at Oxford, 2 Parts, each .15 

BY VICTOR HUGO 

784 Les Misorables, Part 1 20 

784 “ “ Part IT 20 

784 “ “ Partin 20 

BY STANLEY HUNTLEY 

109 The Spoopendyko Papers 20 

BY R. H. HUTTON 

364 Life of Scott 26 

BY PROF. HUXLEY 

369 Life of Hume 10 

BY V7ASKINGT0N IRVING 

147 The Sketch Book 20 

198 Tales of a Traveller 20 

199 Life and Voyages of Columbus, 


Life and Voyages of Cv)’umbu8, 

Part H 20 

224 Abbotsford and Nowstead Abbey .. .10 
236 Knickerliockcr 1 1 istory of K e w York, 20 

219 The Crayon Papers 20 

263 I’he Alhambra 15 

272 Conquest of Granada 20 

279 Conquest of Spain 10 

281 Bracebridge Hall 20 

290 Salmagundi 20 

299 Astoria, 20 

301 Siianish Voyages 20 

305 A Tour on the Prairies 10 

308 Life of Mahomet, 2 Parts, each ... .15. 

310 Oliver Goidsinith 20 

311 Captain Bonneville 20 

314 Moorish Chronicles 10 

321 Wolfert’s Roo.st Mi.scellanics 10 

BY HARRIET JAY 

17 The Dark Colleen 20 

BY SAMUEL JOHNSON 

44 Rasselas 10 

BY MAU.RICE JOKAI 

754 A Modern Midas 20 


BY ADAH M. HOWARD 


970 

Against Her Will 


631 

993 

The < 

Child Wife. 


..10 



BY MARIE 

HOWLAND 


111 

534 

Pajia' 

’s Own Girl 


..30 


BY 

EDWARD HOWLAND 


106 

742 

Social Solurious, 

Part I 


747 


“ 

Part II 

. .10 


758 



Phi t HI 

..10 

67 

762 


tt 

Part IV 

..10 


765 

774 

(( 

H 

Part V 

Part VI .. 

..10 

..10 

39 

<)4 

778 

4-4 

* 

1‘art Vri 

..10 

782 

44 

(t 

Part VIII 

10 


785 

44 


Part IX 

..10 

726 

788 

44 

4( 

Part X 

..10 

728 

791 

44 

i* 

Part XI 


731 

796 

44 

it 

Part XII 

,.10 

736 


BY JOHN KEATS 

Poems 25 

BY EDWARD KELLOGG 

Labor and Cajutal 20 

BY GRACE KENNEDY 

Dunallan, 2 Parts, each 15 

BY JOHN P. KENNEDY 

Horse- Shoe Tlnbinson, 2 Partn. each .15 

BY CHARLES KINGSLEY 

The Hermits 20 

Hypatia, 2 Parts, each 15 

BY HENRY KINGSLEY 

Austin Eliot 20 

The Hillyars and Burtons 20 

IrtjightOM Court .20 

Geoffrey Hamlyn 30 


7 


■ 

Lovell’s 


BY W. H. G. KINGSTON 

264 Peter the Whaler 20 

322 Mark Seaworth 20 

t 324 Round the World 29 

335 The Young Foresters 20 

! 337 Saltwater 20 

I 833 The Midshipman 20 

BY F. KIRBY 

! 454 The Golden Dog {Le chien d'or) 40 

BY A. LA POINTS 

445 The Rival Doctors 20 

I BY MISS MAEGARET LEE 

? 25 Divorce 20 

600 A Brighton Night ,20 

725 Dr. Wilmer’s Love 25 

741 Lorimer and Wife 20 

BY VERNON LEE 

797 A Phantom Lover 10 

798 Prince of the Hundred Soups 10 

BY JULES LERMINA 

469 The Chase 20 

BY CHARLES LEVER 

327 Harry Lorrequer 20 

789 Charles O’Malley, 2 T’arts, each 20 

704 Tom Burke of Ours, 2 Parts, each . . 20 

BY H. W. LONGFELLOW 

1 Hyperion 20 

2 Outre-Mer 20 

482 Poems 20 

BY SAMUEL LOVER 

163 The Happy Man 10 

719 Rory O’ More 20 

849 Handy Andy 20 

BY LORD LYTTON 

11 The Coming Race 10 

12 Leila .10 

31 Kimest Maltravers 20 

32 The Haunted House 10 

45 Alice : A Sequel to Ernest Maltra- 
vers 20 

66 A Strango Story 20 

69 Last Days of Pompeii 20 

81 Zanoni 20 

84 Night and Morning, 2 Parts, each. .15 

117 Paul Clifford 20 

121 Lady of Lyons 10 

123 Money 10 

152 Richelieu 1C 

160 Rienzi, 2 Parts, each 15 

176 Pelham 20 

204 Eugene Aram 20 

222 The Disowned 20 

240 Kenelm Chillingly 20 

245 What Will He Do with It ? 2 Parts, 

each 20 

217 Devereux 20 

260 The Caxtons, 2 Parts, each 15 

263 Lucretia 20 

255 Last of the Barons. 2 Parts, each ... 15 

259 The Parisians. 2 Parts, each 20 

271 My Novel, 3 Parts, each 20 

276 Harold, 2 Parts, each 15 

289 Qodolphin 20 

294 Pilgrims of the Rhine 15 

317 Pausanias 15 


LIBRARY. 

BY COMMANDER LOVETT-CAM- 

ERON. 

817 The Cruise of the Black Ihince. ...2<l 

BY MRS. H. LOVETT-CAMERON 


927 Pure Gold 20 

BY HENRY W. LUCY 

06 Gidecn Fleyce 20 

BY HENRY C. LUKENS 

181 Jets and Flashes 20 

BY EDNA LYALL 

963 Knights-Erraut 20 

BY E. LYNN LYNTON 

^6 lone Stewart 20 

BY LORD MACAULAY 

333 Lays of Ancient Rome 20 

BY KATHERINE S- MACQUOID 

898 Joan Wentworth 20 

BY E. MARLITT 

771 The Old Mam’selle's Secret 20 

1053 Gold Elsie 20 

BY CAPTAIN MARRYAT 

312 The Privateersman 20 

BY FLORENCE MARRYAT. 

903 The Master Passion 20 

904 A Lucky Disappointment ..10 

905 Her Lord and Master 20 

906 My Own Child -’O 

lKj7 No Intentions 20 

908 Written in Fire 20 

909 A Little Stepson 10 

919 With Cupid’s Eyes 20 

931 Why Not? 20 

937 My Sister the Actress 20 

938 Captain Norton’s Diary 10 

939 Girls of Feversham ... .20 

940 The Root of all Evil 20 

942 Facing the Footlights 20 

943 Petronel 20 

944 A Star and a Heart .10 

946 A Harvest* of Wil* d ‘6 ats ."!.** .* .* .’ ‘ ’ 20 

947 The Poison of A«ps 10 

948 Fair-Haired Alda 20 

9 19 The Heir Presumptive 20 

950 Under the Lilies and Roses 20 

951 Heart of June Warner 20 

952 Love’s Conflict, Parti 20 

952 Love’s Conflict, Part II 20 

953 Phyllida 20 

954 Out of His Reckoning 10 

979 Her World against a Lie 20 

990 Open Sesame 20 

991 Mad Dumaresq 20 

999 Fighting tho Air 20 

BY HELEN MATHERS 

165 Eyre’s Acquittal 10 

1046 Cornin’ Thro’ the Rye 20 

1047 Sam’s Sweetheart 20 

1048 Story of a Sin 20 

1 049 Cherry Ripe 20 

1060 My Lady Green Sleeves 20 


lovell’s library. 


BY HAEEIET MAETINEAU 


853 Tales of the French Revolution 15 

354 Loom and Lugger :i0 

3o7 Berkeley the Banker .20 

358 Homos Abroad 15 

363 For Each and For All 15 

372 Hill and Valley 15 

379 The Charmed 8ea 15 

388 Life in the Wilds ’ 15 

3i)5 Sowe:-s not Reapers 15 

400 Glen of the Echoes 15 

BY A. MATEEY 

46 Duke of Kandos. 20 

60 The Two Duchesses 20 

BY W. S. MAYO 

70 The Berber ^ 

BY J. H. McCAETKY 

115 An Outline of Irish History 10 

BY JUSTIN McCAETHY, M.P. 

278 Maid of Athens 20 

BY T. L. MEADE 

328 How It All Came Round 20 

BY OWEN MEEEDITH 

331 Lucilc 20 

BY JOHN MILTON 

389 Paradise Lost 20 

1092 Poems ,35 

BY WILLIAM MINTO 

377 Life of Defoe 10 

BY MES. MOLESWOETH 

1008 Marrying and Giving in Marriage ..10 
BY SUSANNA MOODIE 

1007 GoolTrey Moncton oO 

1068 Flora Lyndsny 20 

1074 Roughing it in the Bush 20 

1076 Life in the Backwoods 20 

1085 Life in the Clearings 20 

BY THOMAS MOOEE 

416 Lalla llookh 20 

487 Poems 40 

BY JOHN MOELEY 

407 Life of Burke 10 

BY J. C. MOEEISON 

383 Life of Gibbon 10 

BY EDWAED H. MOTT 

139 Pike County Folks 20 

BY ALAN MUIE 

312 Golden Girls 20 

BY LOUISA MUHLBACH 

1000 Fredei ick the Great and his Court. ,30 

1014 The Daughter of an Empress 30 

10.54 Goethe and Schiller 30 

1091 Queen Hortense 80 

BY MAX MULLEE 

130 India ; What Can It Teach Us ? .... 20 
BY MISS MULOCK 

S3 John Halifax 20 

436 Mis.s Tommy 15 

751 King Arthur 20 


BY DAVID CHEISTIE MUEEAY 


197 By the Gate of the Sea 15 

768 Cynic Fortune 10 

1116 Dne Traveller Returns ,20 

BY F. MYEES 

410 Life of Wordsworth 10 

BY FLOEENCE NEELY 

564 Hand-Book for the Kitchen 20 

BY EEV. E. H. NEWTON 

83 Right and Wrong Use.s of the Bible. .20 

BY JOHN NICHOL 

347 Life of Byron 10 

BY JAMES E. NICHOLS, M.D. 

376 Science at Homo 20 

BY W. E. NOEEIS 

108 No New Thing 20 

592 That Terrible Man 10 

779 My Friend Jira 10 

BY CHEISTOPHEE NOETH 

439 Noctes Ambrosianm 30 

BY F. E. M. NOTLEY 

1095 From the Other Side 20 

BY LAUEENCS OLIPHANT 

1 96 Altiora Peto 20 

BY MES. OLIPHANT 

124 The Ladies Lindores 20 

179 The Little Pilgrim 10 

176 Sir Tom 20 

326 The Wizard’s Son . .25 

368 Old Lady M ary 1 0 

602 Oliver's Bride .10 

717 A Country Gentleman 20 

831 The Son of his Father 20 

920 John: a Love Story 20 

925 A Poor Gentleman 20 

9m Lucy Crofton 10 

BY MAX O’EELL 

386 John Bull and Hi.s Island 20 

459 John Bidl and Hi.s Daughters 20 

BY OUIDA 

112 Wanda, 2 Parts, each 16 

127 Under Two Flags, 2 Parts, each 20 

387 Princess Napraxine 25 

675 A Rainy June 10 

763 Moths 20 

790 Othmar 20 

806 A House Party 10 

852 Friendship 20 

853 In Muremma 20 

8.54 Signa ^ 

856 Pascarel 20 

BY ALBERT K. OWEN 

655 Integral Co-operation 30 

BY LOUISA PARE 

42 Robin 20 

BY MARK PATTISON 

392 Life of Milton 10 

BY JAMES PAYN 

187 Thicker than Water 20 

330 The Canon’s Ward 20 

669 Luck of the Darrells 20 


9 


LOVELL’ S LIBRARY 


BY HENRY PETERSON 

1016 Pemberton 30 

BY F. C. PHILLIPS 

1082 Strange Adventures of Lucy Smith .20 

lOS-1 Ah in a Looking Glass 20 

3084 The Dean and his Daughter 20 

1007 Jack and Three Jills 20 

BY EDGAH ALLAH POE 

40.'J Pori us 20 

420 N irrative of A. Gordon Pyin 35 

4-!2 Gold Bug, and Other Tales 35 

4o8 The Assignation, and Other Tales. .15 
447 The Murders in the Rue Morgue . . .15 

BY WILLIAM POLE, F.E.S. 


406 The Theory of the Modern Scien- 


tiiic Game of Whist 15 

BY ALEX&NDEK POPE 

oOl Homers Odyssey 20 

396 Homer’s Iliad 30 

457 Poems 30 

BY JANE PORTEB 

189 Scottish Chiefs, Part 1 20 

Scottish Chiefs, Part II 20 

382 Thaddeus of Warsaw 25 

BY C. F. POST AND FEED. C. 
LEDBUCHEE 

838 The George-Hcwitt Campaign 20 

BY ADELAIDE A. PEOCTEE 

839 Poems 20 

BY ACrNES EAY 

1010 Mrs. Gregory 20 

BY CHAELES EEADE 

28 Sinaleheart and Doubleface 10 

415 A Perilous Secret 20 

7.59 Poul Play 20 

773 Put Yourself in his Place 20 

913 Gritnth Gaunt 20 

914 A Terrible Temptation 20 

915 Very Hard Cash 20 

916 It is Never Too Late to Mend 20 

917 The Knightsbridge Mystery 10 

9(8 A Wo m a n H ater 20 

919 Rcadiana 10 

BY EEBECCA FEEGDS EEDD 

10 Freckles 20 

408 The Brierfield Tragedy 20 

BY “ EITA ” 

550 Dame Durden 20 

599 Like D Ian’s Kiss 20 

BY SIE H. EOBEETS 

101 Harry Holbrooke 20 

BY A. M. F. EOBINSON 

131 Anion 15 

BY EEGINA MAEIA EOCHE 

4!1 Children of the Abbey 30 

EOLLIN’S ANCIENT HISTOEY. 

1103 Volume 1 20 

lUl “ Ti 20 

1114 “ III 20 

1117 “ IV 20 

1122 “ V 20 

1125 “ VI 20 

1128 “ VII 20 

1131 “VIII 20 


BY BLANCHE EOOSEVELT 

837 Marked ‘ ‘ In Haste ” 20 

BY DANTE EOSSETTI 

829 Poems 20 

. BY JOHN EUSKIN 

49T^esame and Lilies 10 

505 Crown of Wild Olives 10 

510 Ethics of the Dust 10 

616 Queen of the Air 10 

521 Seven Lamps of ArchitectiTrc. 20 

637 Lectures on Architecture and Paint- 
ing 15 

542 Stones of Venice, 3 Vols., each 25 

565 Modern Painters, Vol. 1 20 

572 “ Vol. II 20 

.577 “ “ Vol. Ill 20 

,589 “ “ Vol. IV 25 

608 “ “ Vol. V 26 

593 King of the Golden River 10 

623 Unto this Last 10 

627 Munera Pulvcris 15 

687 “ A Joy Forever ” 15 

689 The Pleasures of England 10 

6 12 The Two Paths 20 

644 Lectures on Art 15 

647 Aratra Peutelici 15 

650 Time and Tide 15 

663 Mornings in Florence 15 

668 St. Mark’s Rest 15 

^70 Deucalion 15 

678 Art of England 15 

676 Eagle’s Nest 15 

679 ‘ Our Fathers Have Told Us” 15 

682 Pranerpina 15 

685 Val d’Arno 15 

683 Love's Meinie 15 

707 Fors Clavigera, Part 1 80 

708 “ “ Part IT 30 

713 “ “ I’art HI 30 

714 “ “ Part IV 80 

BY MES. EOWSON 

150 Charlotte Temple 10 

BY W. CLAEK EDSSELL 

123 A Sea Queen 20 

399 John Holdsworth 20 

883 A Voyage to the Cape 20 

884 Jack’s Courtship 20 

8^35 A Sailor’s Sweetheart 20 

886 On the Fo’k’slc Head 20 

997 The Golden Hope 20 

1087 The Frozen Pirate 20 

BY DOEA EDSSELL 

816 The Broken Seal 20 

BY GEOEGE SAND 

185 The Tower of Pcrcemont 20 

965 The Lilies of Florence 20 

BY J. X. B. SAINTINE 

710 Picciola 10 

BY MES. W. A. SAVILLE 

27 Social Etiquette 15 

BY DE. E. J. SCHELLHODS 

1094 The New Repiiblio 30 

BY J. C. F. VON SCHILLEE 

341 Schiller’s Poems 20 

BY MICHAEL SCOTT 

171 Tom Cringle’s Log 20 


10 


LOVELL’S 


BY SIB WALTER SCOTT 

146 Ivanhoe, 2 Parts, each 15 

859 Lady of the Lake, with Notes !;;0 

Pride of Lammermoor 20 

490-''Black Dwarf 10 

4^ '^.Castle Dangerous 15 

4f53 Legend of Montrose 15 

4'15' The Surgeon’s Daughter 10 

400 Heai-t of Mid-Lothian 30 

502 Waverley 20 

50-f '^Fortunes of Nigel 20 

500 Peveril of the Peak 30 

616 The Pirate 20 

r>3o Poetical Works 40 

544 Rcdgauntlet 25 

551 W oodstock 20 

557 Count Robert of Paris 20 

5iri._The Abbot 20 

67i.M2uentin Diirward 20 

581 Jl’he Talisman 20 

586^ St. Ron n ns Well 20 

505 Anne of Geierstcin 20 

005 Aunt Margaret’s Mirror 10 

607 Chronicles of tlie Canongate 15 

GOO^^he Monastery 20 

020 GuyMannering 20 

0'^;lJvenihvorth 25 

62ir The Antiquary 20 

032 Rob Roy 20 

035 The Betrothed 20 

638,^rf'air Maid of Perth 20 

641 Did Mortality 20 

/ BY EUGENE SCBIBE 

22 Fleuretto 20 

BY PRINCIPAL SHAIRP 

334 Life of Burns 10 

BY MARY W. SHELLEY 

5 Fi ankenstcin 10 

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 

649 Complete Poetical Works 30 

BY S. SHELLEY 

101 The Nautz Family 20 

BY J. H. SHORTHOUSE 

832 SirPercival 10 

BY EDITH SIMCOX 

613 Men, Women, and Lovers 20 

BY WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS 

640 The Partisan 30 

648 ^fellichampe 30 

6.53 The Yemassee SO 

657 Kiitherin e Walton 30 

662 Southward Ho ! 30 

671 The Scout 30 

674 The Wigwam and Cabin 30 

677 Vasconselos 30 

650 Confession 30 

6^4 Woodcraft 30 

637 Richard Ilurdis ....30 

690 Guy Rivers 30 

G93 Border Beagles SO 

697 The Forayers 80 

702 Charlemont 30 

703 Eutaw 30 

7 05 Beaiich am pc 30 

BY J. P. SIMPSON 

126 Haunted Hearts 10 

BY A. P. SINNETT 

024 Karma 20 


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BY HAWLEY SMART 

780 Bad to Beat 10 

1103 Saddle aud Sabie 20 

BY SAMUEL SMILES 

425 Self-Help 25 

BY A. SMITH 

694 A Summer in Skye 20 

BY GOLDWIN SMITH 

110 False Hopes 15 

424 Life of Cowper 10 

BY J. GREGORY SMITH 

65 Selma 15 

BY S. M. SMUCKER 

248 Life of Webster, 2 Parts, each 16 

BY F. SPIELHAGEN 

449 Quisiana 20 

BY STARKWEATHER AND 
WILSON 

461 Socialism 10 

BY LESLIE STEPHEN 

396 Life of Pope 10 

401 Life of .lohnson 10 

BY STEPNIAK 

173 Underground Russia 20 

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON’ 

767 Kidnapi>ed 20 

^ B U ange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. 

Hyde 10 

769 Prince Otto 10 

770 The Dynamiter 20 

793 New Arabian Nights 20 

8l!) Treasure Is! and 20 

921 The Merry Men 20 

1102 The Misadventures of John Nich- 
olson 10 

BY HESBA STRETTON 

729 In Prison and Out 20 

BY JULIAN STURGIS 

1062 Dick’s Wandering 20 

BY EUGENE SUE 


772 Mysteries of Paris, 2 Parts, each . . .20 


776 The Wandering Jew, 2 Parts, each .20 

BY DEAN SWIFT 

68 Gulliver’s Travels 20 

BY CHAS. ALGERNON SWIN- 
BURNE 

412 Poems 20 

BY J. A. SYMONDS 

361 Life of Shelley 10 

BY H. A. TAINE 


442 Taine’s English Literature 40 

BY NIKOLAI V. TCHERNUISH- 


COSKY 

1017 A Vital Question 80 

BY LORD TENNYSON 

446 Poems 40 

BY JUDGE D. P. THOMPSON 

21 The Green Mountain Boys 20 

BY THEODORE TILTON 

94 Tempest Tossed, Fart T 20 

94 Tempest Tossed, Part II 2^ 


LOVELL S LIBRARY 


BY W. M. THACKERAY 


141' Henry Esmond 20 

143 Denis Duval .20 

148 Catherine 10 

150 Lovel, the Widower 10 

104 Barry Lyndon 20 

17Ji* Vanity Fair SO 

198 History of Pendennis, 2 Parts, each. .20 

211 The Ncwconies, 2 Parts, each 20 

220 Book of Snobs 10 

229 Paris Sketches 20 

285 Adventures of Philip, 2 Parts, each ..15 

288 The Virginians, 2 Parts, each 20 

252 Critical Reviews, etc 10 

250 Eastern Sketches li> 

202 Fatal Boots, etc 10 

264 Tiie Four Georges 10 

280 Fitzboodle Papers, etc 10 

288 Roundabout Papers 20 

285 A Legend of the Rhine, etc lO 

280 Cox’s Diary, etc 10 

292 IrLsh Sketches, etc 20 

290 Men’s Wives 10 

300 Novels by Eminent Hands 10 

808 Character Sketches, etc 10 

804 Christinas Books 20 

306 Ballads 15 

307 Yellowplush Papers 10 

809 Sketches and Travels in London. . . .10 

818 English Humorists 15 

310 Great Jloggarty Diamond 10 

820 The Ro.so and the Ring 10 

BY COUHT LYOF TOLSTOI 

1110 My Husband and 1 10 

1118 Polikouchka 10 

1124 Two Generations 10 

BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE 

133 Mr. Scarborough's Famil}', 2 Parts, 

each ... 15 

251 Autobiography of Anthony Trollope.20 

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640 Poems 25 

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1056 The History of a Week 10 

1057 8'ho Baby’s Grandmothe.' 20 

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1059 Cousins 20 

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980 At the World’s Mercy 10 

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360 Modern Christianity a Civilized 

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265 Plutarch’s Lives, 5 Parts, each 20 

291 Famous Fm ny Fellows 20 

328 Life of Paul .lones 20 

382 Every-Day Cook-Book 20 

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385 Swiss Family Robinson 20 

886 Childliood of the World 10 

397 Arabian Nights' Eidrrtainnu nts. . . .25 
402 How He Reached the White House. 25 

488 Wrecks in the Sea of Life 20 

484 Typhaines Abbey 25 

483 Tiie Child Hunters 15 

857 A Wilful Young Woman 20 

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967 The Three Bummers 20 

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63 Speeches of Henry Ward Beecher on 

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84 Peck’s Irish Friend, Phelan 

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86 Strange Adventures of Lucy Smith, 

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88 Memories of Men who Saved the 

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60 Dawn, by H. Rider Haggard . 25 

61 Shadow of a Sin. and Wedded and 

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95 From the Other Side, by Notley. . . 25 

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ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


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ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


CHAPTER L 

The July moon hung at the zenith in a slcy 
absolutely unclouded, and its light fell upon 
a scene the hke of which no eye has looked 
on for now full fifteen hundred years. A 
circle of huge and venerable oak trees, or- 
dered with geometrical precision, and so 
planted that the extended arms of each 
touched lightly those of its neighbours, en- 
closed a space of land a mile in width. The 
continuity of leafy touch was perfect save in 
four places. Within the umbrageous ring 
lay another at a distance of not more than a 
score of yards, and within that another, and 

£ 


3 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


SO on in rings that lessened and lessened to 
the number of thirty-nine. Through the grove 
thus made ran two roads, forming a cross 
within the circle, and in the exact centre of 
this amazing forest solitude rose a great rock, 
from the top of which the two roads were 
seen as four, each narrowing between the 
broadening segments of the wood. 

This rock, around which the symmetrical 
forest had been planted, was, like the mighty 
grove itself, a piece of nature, modelled and 
moulded by human art. Within it, by almost 
an infinity of labour, a cavern had been exca- 
vated, and the prodigious boulder of granite 
was no more than a shell. Generations of 
indefatigable workmen had carved all away 
save for three massive pillars, which were left 
to support the roof. 

Eough-hewn steps ascended to the bare 
crown of the rock, whereon was set, sloping 
to east and to west, the curved sacrificial 
stone. 

Of the four ways which led to this great 
rock through the grove of oak trees three 
would have seemed to be rarely traversed. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


3 


In the soft and elastic turf of the fourth a 
path was traced with enough of distinctness 
to indicate the frequent passing of feet. And 
in the broad strip of moonlit turf between 
the massive shadows thrown by the trees 
walked a regal and martial figure. His feet 
were almost soundless on the grass, for he 
was shod only with thong-tied sandals of 
pliant leather, and his steps fell as softly as 
though he had been bare-footed. From the 
ankle to the knee rose greaves of leather, and 
between these and the wolfskin kilt the bared 
thighs shone white and lustrous. Over one 
shoulder was thrown a mere broad band of 
wolfskin, and this together with the kilt was 
bound about the waist by a belt of coloured 
hide. The brawny arms were quite bare ex- 
cept for heavy bangles of gold, worn near 
the shoulder and held in place by the swelling 
muscle below them. Now and then a swift 
and furtive flash of polished metal betrayed 
a great knife at the man’s girdle, and behind 
him hung a shield studded over with spikes 
of burnished iron, on which the moonlight 
gleamed with a continual changeful play. The 


4 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


half-naked chest and back and the bare arms 
and thighs looked like marble in the moonlight, 
and seemed the whiter by contrast with the 
flowing black hair and the dark hue of the 
skins. The man wore a circlet of gold about 
his forehead, and he walked as though he 
felt himself to be worthy of that distinction. 

On the side from which he approached 
the brow of the rock projected, and below 
the overhanging ledge the shadow was in- 
tense. The man walked to the rock with no 
abatement of pace, and disappeared in the 
dense shadow as though the granite had 
gaped to swallow him. He had done no more 
than push aside a hanging curtain of skins 
which sheltered the entrance of the cavern. 
A dozen half-naked figures leapt at him, knife 
in hand. 

‘ It is Feltor, the king ! ’ cried one, and 
they fell back from him with obeisances. 

Pine torches glared and smoked, straggling 
out of or drooping from niches cut for their 
reception in the rocky wall. The chamber 
was a network of flaring light and flying 
gloom, and in the red and yellow glow of the 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS $’ 

torches the bare limbs that had shone marble 
■white outside Hashed dimly no'w like bronze. 

Feltor "walked on without so much as a 
gesture or a glance, skirted the three grey 
pillars of rough-cut granite, threw aside a 
hanging of skins at the further end of the 
chamber and disappeared. For a second or 
two he moved in profound darkness, but ad- 
vancing with a firm and accustomed footstep 
he threw aside a third curtain, and saw a 
jagged and broken line of light which peered 
between the wall of the rocky passage and 
the edge of yet another hanging of furs. 

Here he paused for a moment, and then 
advancing with a step as stealthy and as silent 
as a cat’s, he drew aside the final curtain and 
entered on a circular chamber, the two occu- 
pants of which — a man and a woman — were 
bending over a fire, the man tall and gaunt, 
with a sweeping white beard, the woman with 
an unusual grace of form. The two were 
watching something with great intentness of 
purpose, and the sweeping beard was caught 
for a moment by a sidelong motion of the 
woman’s, and streamed over her beautiful hair 


6 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


like a network of silver spread over a globe 
of gold. Alike unconscious of this slight 
contact the two stood in rapt observation, 
the girl snaking her head hither and thither 
in the eagerness of her regard, and the old 
man bending immobile above her. 

The king, still grasping the curtain of 
furs with one hand, stood silent. 

‘ It is well-nigh ready,'' said the old man. 

He spoke with a muffled voice, and the 
tone fell ■vvith a strange deadness on the ear. 
The light of the two copper lamps by which 
the chamber was illumined did not reach to 
the roof, but died midway, leaving an eternity 
of blackness to the imagination. The walls 
were heavily lined with skins. The floor was 
covered deep with strewn southernwood, and 
its aromatic odour made the air heavy. Silence 
grew obtrusive here, and seemed to demand 
to be broken by a cry. 

The king’s eyes gloated on the girl, and a 
shadow of passion rested upon his face. 

‘ It is ready,’ the girl cried on a sudden, and 
covering both hands with a piece of dressed 
deerskin which lay near her, she seized the 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


7 


copper bowl whose contents she and the old 
man had watched so intently, and removed it 
Avith a smooth and rapid action from the fire 
to a roughly oval table of solid granite which 
stood in the centre of tlie chamber. The 
whole movement was so free and continuous 
that it looked like a single gesture. She had 
fallen upon one knee before the table, and 
her muffled hands still held the copper bowl, 
when she looked up, and across the thin and 
waving column of steam which arose from 
the vessel saw Feltor’s face. For a mere 
second the animal mastery of desire she read 
there held her bound, and she looked back 
with startled and almost frightened eyes. Then 
her whole face gleamed into a smile of pure 
coquettish triumph, and she laughed aloud. 

‘So,’ she said, ‘you have left the lovely 
Vreda after all.’ 

The king’s face went white, and, still cling- 
ing to the curtain of skins with one hand, 
he twice made an irresolute motion with the 
other. Then he extended his arm to the full, 
and with a shaking forefinger pointed to the 
copper bowl. 


,'8 ONE TEAVEl.LER RETURNS 

‘ Wenegog,’ he demanded of the gaunt 
old man, ‘ what is this ? ’ 

‘It is the draught,’ said the old man 
calmly. ‘ To-night all will ’oe over.’ 

‘ To-night ? ’ 

‘ To-night.’ 

The answer fell like a c,alm echo. The 
girl laughed again, and Feltor looked at her 
once more. She met his shifting glance with a 
mocking triumph, and lifting the bowl clanked 
it twice or thrice upon the stone, and then, 
springing lightly to her feet, made him a 
sweeping obeisance. 

She was attired in a single length of soft 
and fleecy woollen stuff, bleached to perfect 
whiteness. This garment was caught up at 
the left shoulder and again at the left hip by 
large clasps of silver, and about her waist 
she wore a broad belt of dappled deerskin, 
into which a silver knife was stuck. Both 
round white arms were bare, and the right 
shoulder and breast were uncovered. 

As she half arose from her coquettish 
courtesy, she glanced at the rosy little foot in 
its deerskin sandal peering from the division 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


9 


of her robe, and then laughing at Feltor, with 
a sidelong glance, drew back with a sinuous 
motion, which left the rounded hmb exposed 
to the knee, glanced down again, glanced 
up again, and with a sudden affectation of 
prudery hid her face in her hands. 

The arch-Druid, with his streaming white 
beard gathered in a great handful, stood look- 
ing from one to the other with a wry smile. 
Feltor’s eyes held the girl’s figure hungrily, 
and he drew them away with a slow reluct- 
ance and encountered the old man’s gaze. 

‘ Why to-nigh-t ’ he asked, as if recalled 
to the tragic business of the hour. 

‘ To-morrow it may be too late,’ Wene- 
gog answered. ‘ We have waited too long 
already.’ 

For a space of time no other word was 
spoken. The arch-Druid turned away, and, 
searching in a recess concealed by one of the 
hanging skins, drew forth a vessel of blue 
spar. Then approaching the table, he laid a 
hand upon the edge of the copper bowl to 
try its temperature. Finding it yet too hot 
to hold with the naked hand, he took it in a 


to 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


corner of his robe and slowly poured its con- 
tents into the vessel of spar. Feltor watched 
the stream as it flowed from the one vessel 
into the other. A visible crepitation ran 
through him from head to foot, and his face 
was ghastly. 

Wenegog having half filled the vase, 
spread a morsel of dressed skin over the top 
of it, and secured it there with a thong. All 
his movements were marked, by a calm de- 
liberateness, but Feltor watched them as if he 
were held by some freezing fascination. The 
girl approached him and laid a hand upon his 
bare arm. He turned with a start and looked 
down at her. 

‘ Come ! ’ she said, looking up into his face. 

The Druid, with the deadly potion held 
in both hands, glanced from Feltor to his 
daughter and back again. Feltor’s forehead 
began to glisten with a dreadful dew, and he 
turned towards the hanging of skins and drew 
it back with an unsteady hand. He passed 
into the darkness beyond, and the girl and 
the old man followed. At the entrance to 
the larger cavern the king paused again, and 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


1 ! 


put out a hand in the gloom, seeking the 
suppdrt of the rough-hewn wall. The girl 
tripped against him, and rounded a persua- 
sive arm about his waist, pushing him gently 
forward. He obeyed the impulse thus given 
and once more led the way, the wild figures 
in the cave standing upright in silence as the 
trio passed among them, the arch-Druid, with 
the spar vessel balanced in both, hands before 
him, bringing up the rear. 

The moonhght lay broad and solemn on 
the greensward, and the avenue of oaks 
seemed of ebony and silver. The shadows 
within the grove lay dense, solid, and impene- 
trable, save where here and there a shaft of 
light pierced to the undergrowth. On the 
soft turf the footsteps of the three were 
noiseless, and they moved like ghosts. Only 
now and again the gold bangle Feltor wore 
on either arm would clank on the edge of the 
shield which hung behind him. Suddenly ho 
paused and turned. 

‘ I will not have it done to-night,’ he -aid 
hoarsely, spreading out his hands as if «o uar 
the passage of his followers. 


13 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


‘The Nazarene blasphemer is with her 
even now,’ said the arch- Druid. ‘She shall 
die in the faith of her fathers.’ 

‘ She shall not die,’ cried Feltor. ‘ She is 
my wife, my queen, the mother of my child.’ 

‘ The message is from Odan,’ the old man 
answered, with an assured and perfect quiet. 
‘ She will die to-night, and she will die in the 
faith of her fathers.’ 

‘ What Odan wills must happen,’ said the 
king ; ‘but it is no act of mine.’ 

‘ It is thine,’ said Wenegog, ‘ and thine 
alone. This blasphemy of the gods began 
with thee.’ 

The old man’s voice was tranquil and his 
countenance unmoved. His flowing white 
hair was bound about by a chaplet of oak- 
leaves, his wliite beard fell like a foarning 
water-race over his white robe and was 
hardly distinguishable from it, and lie looked 
in the moonlight like a carven impersonation 
of Doom. His deeply-caverned eyes alone 
seemed charged with life, and they burned 
with a steady and implacable lire. Feltor 
stood before him writhing his iiands strongly 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


13 


together. Tightly as he gripped one with 
the other, they slid smoothly each in the 
other’s grasp, for they were moist with the 
sweat of horror. 

‘ Began with me ? ’ he asked. * What 
power had I ? ’ 

‘ Could the Nazarene have hved a day if 
thou hadst spoken a word ? Art king, 
Feltor ! ’ 

‘ King ! ’ cried Feltor. ‘ In what is the 
queen’s consort king ? There is no ox in her 
herds who is not as free as I am. She com- 
manded me to be her husband and I obeyed 
her.’ 

‘ And brake faith with the child,’ answered 
the old man, glancing at his daughter. ‘ And 
therewith the heresy began, and from that 
day until now it has grown until the poisonous 
weed overruns field and pasture. The com- 
mon fool eats the mad folly with his food and 
drinks it with the water of the spring. The 
gods are weary.’ 

Here for the first time he flashed out of 
calm. For a second he stood with the vessel 
of spar poised high in his left hand, and then 


14 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

drawing his knife from his girdle he dashed it 
point downwards to the ground. It struck 
deep into the turf, the hilt quivering, and the 
moonlight rippling on the blade. 

‘The gods have spoken,’ he said, and 
straightway fell back into his former tranquil- 
lity, as the cloud from which a thunderbolt 
has fallen looks innocent of it a moment later. 
‘ There is my oath.’ He pointed to the blade 
which still trembled in the ground at his feet, 
and then, as though everything had been past 
recall, he walked on, poising the vessel of 
spar before him. 

Feltor stared at the blade and stood in 
silence. The girl looked at him for awhile, 
and by-and-by slid between him and the 
object of his regard. 

‘ You said it was me you cared for, and 
not her ? ’ 

‘It is you, and not her,’ he answered 
sullenly. ‘ I think at times that you have 
cast spells upon me. Why should I desire 
you rather than her ? As if a man should 
turn from the table of the gods to drink mead 
with men.’ 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


IS 


* Why not, if he sat there and thirsted ? 
If you were to cut this pretty hand — is it not 
a pretty hand ? — it would bleed, and the 
blood would run red and warm. Tour 
Vreda’s blood runs pale like milk and is cold 
like ice. Why should you desire me rather 
than her ? Because I am a woman, Feltor. 
Because I will have it so that you desire me 
rather than her. Am I halt or blind of an 
eye? Are you the only man who turns red 
and white when I look at him ? I saw your 
eyes to-night, Feltor.’ 

Her voice mocked him and caressed him 
by turns, and every movement of her supple 
figure seduced him. 

‘ You loved me once, Feltor,’ she went on 
murmuring, and with a broken voice. ‘Do 
you love me no more ? ’ 

He stepped forward swiftly to embrace 
her, but she moved as quickly sideways, and 
evaded him with a laugh. 

‘ Poor Feltor ! ’ 

The old Druid paused and turned in the 
centre of the avenue. They caught sight of 
him at the same moment, glimmering white 


i6 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

there like a phantom, and with no further 
words set out side by side towards him. As 
tliey neared him he turned away again, 
striding on in silence. 

When they had cleared the grove they 
came upon a wide and uneven prairie in 
which for a considerable distance about the 
oak grove all trees had been felled. Before 
them, far away, in a broad and waving streak 
of brightness lay an estuary of the sea with 
the hills beyond it standing up mournfully 
against the pallor of the sky. In a while 
they passed a congeries of huts of mud and 
wattle, formed like overgrown beehives. Ex- 
cept for a yelping cur or two there was not a 
sign of life in the village. 

Then when a low hill had been skirted 
they came in sight of a widespread low- 
browed house of stone, bulking heavy and 
sohd against that distant brightness of the 
sea. At a distance of not more than a hun- 
dred yards from the house stood an irregular 
line of men, fierce in aspect, and clad in the 
skins of wolf, bear, and wild ox. Heads of 
wolf and bear stared bhndly over the wild 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


17 


faces, and tlie men lounged on their great 
iron-spiked shields of hide-bound wood or on 
cumbrous axes and spears. This savage sol- 
diery kept back a mob of half naked men 
and women and wholly naked children who 
swarmed about them with a constant subdued 
murmur. 

As the arch-Druid approached, the mur- 
mur swelled for an instant and then altogether 
subsided. The irregular line drew into order 
and the men stood to their arms. Wenegog, 
followed by his daughter and Feltor, passed 
through a space opened in the ranks, still 
nursing the poisonous brew in its spar vessel. 
Had the people been aware of what he held 
there no dread of his known communion with 
the gods or terror of his powers would have 
saved him from being torn to pieces. The 
very guards would have helped the vengeance. 
He knew that to the full, and he walked un- 
moved. 

In those stern times men knew but little 
of pity, charity, and unselfishness. Yet here 
and there the virtues lived and warmed a 
human heart. They lived in Vreda, and so 

a 


1 8 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

passing strange and sweet it was that any 
one should have the power to hurt and yet 
the will to comfort, that the people loved her 
as though she had been an angel from the 
skies. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


»S 


OHAPTEE IL 

The three neared the house followed by all 
eyes. Trailing creepers and ferns and cling- 
ing mosses gave a velvety look to the hug< 
stones of the old walls. Beyond the unclothec 
and open doorway, which was but just hig’j 
enough to allow the gaunt figure of the Druii 
to enter without stooping, lay a wide hah 
bounded on three sides by the walls of the 
■ building itself, and on the fourth cut ofi" from 
the rest of the house by three massive pillars 
of granite between which hung curtains of 
alternate stripes of leopard skin and Syi’ian 
scarlet wool. These curtains were suspended 
on rods of pine which ran along the whole 
breadth of the building. The hall was open 
to the air, and the moonlight aided the copper 
lamps which illumined it. . 

0 2 


20 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


Grotesque figures representing gods and 
warriors had been cut into the stone of the 
walls, and the lines were filled in with colour, 
red, blue, and yellow. Solid blocks of granite 
half polished by long usage formed both 
benches and tables, and piles of skins thrown 
into corners here and there showed the 
sleeping-places of guards, attendants, and 
servants. On the side opposite the curtains 
buttresses of stone projected squarely to the 
height of some ten feet, forming a half-score 
or so of niches, each about four yards wide 
and long. These small apartments were all 
roofed in by squared pine stems. The pri- 
vacy of the queen’s women was secured by 
the heavy woollen curtains hung in front of 
each chamber. 

Lyres, harps, cymbals, and triangles of iron 
lay here and there, and great spinning-wheels 
of Roman manufacture gave evidence of femi- 
nine industry. 

The immense hall was full of guards and 
serving men and women, with here and there 
a chief, the fact of whose rank was proclaimed 
by the long sword he wore at his side. A 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


21 


faint hum of conversation made itself more 
felt than heard. 

That portion of the building which lay 
beyond the curtains was roofed in with great 
beams of pine. The hardy Eastern sailors had 
evidently found a ready market here, and 
everything betokened comfort and barbaric 
luxury. The foot trod upon a carpet of 
loosely flung skins of aU kinds. The stone 
couches were covered deep with rugs of Per- 
sian wool and with skins of panther, lion, and 
antelope. Etruscan jars, and brown stone 
pottery, on which Greek artists had depicted 
the actions of their gods, stood side by side 
with drinking-cups of amber and tankards of 
pure crystal, while twisted horns, tipped and 
edged with gold, and jugs and bowls of granite 
represented some of the native handicrafts. 

Some fifteen paces beyond the curtains two 
sets of treble granite pillars divided the place 
into three apartments, the centre one being 
open and serving as an antechamber for the 
two others. The one on the right was the 
chamber of tlie (jueen. and the one on the left 
that of the king. Both were shut ofl'by heavy 


22 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


curtains. In the open antechamber stood a 
block of green and red serpentine marble, 
hollowed out at the top, and fitted with a tray 
of burnished copper rods. Upon this altar 
burned a small fire of pine cones sprinkled 
with borax, the smoke rising and curling along 
the ceiling until it found an outlet in the roof- 
less hall beyond. 

A girl dressed in a square white woollen 
wrapper knotted on the right shoulder and 
under the right arm, and who still held a pine 
cone which was to replenish the fire, had fallen 
asleep over her task, and was lying at the 
foot of the altar with heaving bosom and care- 
lessly stretched hmbs. Two others were sit- 
ting on a heap of skins on the floor near her 
and conversing in whispers. 

Within her own chamber, upon a raised 
couch of panther skins, lay Vreda the queen. 
She was robed in a gown of a pale sea-green 
stufii Her white arms, exquisitely and tenderly 
rounded, lay in complete lassitude. The dark 
eyelashes rested softly on the marble cheek. 
One bare foot was thrust beyond the covering 
of skin which had been laid above it. But 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


23 


for the scarcely perceptible movement of the 
lovely bust, the hues of which were defined 
by the clinging robe, one who looked upon 
her could scarce have thought her alive. 

Beside her knelt that inspired and valiant 
messenger who first brought the story of the 
Tidings of Great Joy to these isles, David, the 
saint, who journeying from Jerusalem to An- 
tioch, from Antioch to Athens, from Athens 
to Eome, from Rome to Gaul, had preached 
the Gospel in well-nigh every tongue spoken 
in Europe, and to the men of well-nigh every 
tribe. Now in the very twilight of his later 
days his indomitable soul had led him hither, 
to dare new dangers, to endure new hardships, 
to defy a new priestcraft, and to gather a new 
harvest of souls. 

Years and cares, wild exultations, mad de- 
spairings, ascetic self-denyings, wrestlings with 
many fiends in many wildernesses, famine, 
shipwreck, the scourge, imprisonment — all 
these had worn and wasted him to the bone. 
He had suffered what a man may suffer, save 
death, and to that he looked in pious hope of 
an eternal refuge. 


24 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


To many his face was a terror, because of 
a certain awful calm which lived in his eyes. 
It bespoke a consciousness of power, and a 
daring altogether more than human. Few men 
were able to endure his look without some 
touch of tremor or misgiving, for his gaze 
seemed to pass within, and to read the hidden 
secrets of the heart. Worn and wasted as he 
was by the incredible buffetings of the world 
through nigh a hundred years, that which was 
left of the man was like oak for toughness and 
endurance. The mere ring of hair which 
fringed his head was grizzled, but it curled 
springily still like wire. His crisp grey beard 
and beetling eyebrows were laced with white. 
His complexion was at once dark and ruddy, 
his face was a map of wrinkles, and his 
high, narrowing forehead was furrowed Uke 
a ploughed field. 

He spoke long and earnestly, and Vreda 
lay without a sign. He j»ansed at last, and 
she opened her eyes and looked at him. With 
that mere lifting of the lids, the faultless 
mask grew to a living face, a face of infinite 
mournfulae.ss and pain. The brown masses 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


25 


of her hair threw her flowerhke pallor into 
a piteous relief. There was in her look 
something of the soft appeal of a suffering 
dumb creature. 

‘ You can help me,’ she said. ‘ You have 
helped others who have been in worse straits 
than I.’ 

‘ I have prayed,’ he answered, ‘ and the 
power has not been granted.’ 

‘ Do this thing,’ said the queen, ‘ and I will 
beheve.’ 

‘ God works in His own way,’ the Evange- 
Ust replied. ‘ If it is His will it shall surely 
come to pass. It is granted to us that we need 
not cease in asking, and I am not weary in 
beseechings.’ 

As he spoke, Vreda, who had half raised 
her head in the eagerness of her appeal, 
di'opped wearily back. The eyes closed again, 
tile pure pallor of her skin changed for a mere 
moment to a dull grey. The Saint seized her 
hand, fearing that the last hour had come, but 
a little later slie rallied somewhat and spoke 
faintly, witli closed eyes. 

‘ I am tired. I am not long for this world. 


36 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


Farewell. We may meet in the House of 
Odan.’ 

‘ Nay/ said David. ‘ There is no meeting 
there, dear child. On the road whereby thou 
goest heth darkness. Ai’t blind, poor suffering 
thing, over whom my soul doth yearn, as in 
its travail ? Have pity on thyself. Turn thee 
about, that by God’s mercy we may meet in 
that city whereof it is written that the Lord 
Himself is the light of it, where there is no 
more sorrow, and nought can enter that doth 
hurt or harm, and He shall wipe away all tears 
from our eyes.’ 

‘ Perchance they are the same,’ answered 
Vreda wearily. ‘ I know not. If they be not 
the same I will go to mine own people.’ 

And with that she lay so still and grey that 
the Saint feared anew. He rose and stood 
with clasped hands above her, looking down 
fixedly for a long while. Once more the pa- 
thetic eyes opened, and he felt his heart so 
hot and full that he needs must speak. 

‘Dear child,’ he began, but she made a 
gesture so eloquent of fatigue and pain that 
his tongue failed him for pure pity. , 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


27 


* To-morrow,’ she breathed feebly. ‘ I can 
Dear no more. Come to-morrow.’ 

‘ Ye know not,’ he answered, ‘ what shall 
be on the morrow. For what is your life ? It 
is even a vapour that appeareth for a little 
time, and then vanisheth away.’ 

She made no response, and after a time he 
moved silently away. The girls in the ante- 
chamber ceased from their whispered talk as 
he passed by them, and shrank back from him 
in awe and terror as he fell suddenly upon his 
knees and burst into an ecstasy of prayer in 
the words of a tongue unknown to them. 

His invocation finished, he arose, and 
mechanically adjusting his tattered woollen 
robe he walked with bent head and drooping 
shoulders into the great hall, where the throng 
of armed men and of men-servants and maid- 
servants fell back and made a way for him. 
He walked on, seeing nothing but the beaten 
earth at his feet, and that only with uncon- 
scious eyes ; but a voice at the door awoke 
him from his thoughts. 

‘Well, dog, are thy whinings answered?’ 

David raised his eyes and saw his arch- 


28 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


enemy Wenegog standing before him with a 
vessel of spar in his hands. 

‘ Who shall declare the counsel of the Lord 
before He hath spoken it ? ’ 

His glance fell to earth again, and he 
passed on. On Vreda’s life hung his best 
hopes of the conversion of her people, and for 
a while his soul desponded withui him. A 
murmured threat from one of the crowd <-f 
warriors reached his ears, and he turned erect 
and terrible. His keen eyes sought and found 
the speaker, and he moved a single pace to- 
wards him. The savage in his huge head-dress 
of oxskin, with the great horns of the ox 
springing trom it on either side, fell back 
cowering as the old man advanced. 

‘ Yea,’ said David. ‘ I shall die when God 
wills. But the hour is not yet.’ 

.‘Vud therewith he turned and sought his 
own [)lace unmolested. That wild guard 
counted courage as a commonplace, but their 
valoiij’ was of deep draughts of mead, and the 
joy and clamour of battle with its music in the 
blood. 'I’liat valour of faith which bore up 
the old Saint when he stood unarmed in the 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


29 


presence of armed and hostile crowds, was 
outside their understanding, and smote awe 
into them wdien they looked upon it. 

Meantime Wenegog, followed by Barxel- 
hold his daughter and Feltor the king, had 
paced the great hall and the antechamber, 
and had reached the apartment of the queen. 
Since David’s departure Yreda had fallen into 
a light sleep, and the trio entered so noiselessly 
that she did not awake at their coming. 

‘ She has hardly need of this,’ said Barxel- 
hold in a whisper, indicating the potion. ' ' 

‘ She would rally without it,’ the Druid 
answered in the same tone. ‘ Till now she has 
had nothing from which the strength of her 
youth might not well save her.’ 

Feltor caught the meaning ot the mur- 
mured words, and shuddered violently. Vreda 
stirred upon her couch, and his eyes were 
rivetted upon her face. She stirred again, 
and awoke, and her first glance encountered 
that of her husband. She lifted her arms to- 
wards him with pain, and a smi^.e of inefiable 
tendernes.s lit her face. 

‘ Beltor,’ she said. Her hands fell feebly 


30 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

bac'k upon the panther shin, but her eyes still 
smiled, though with a pathetic look of pain. 
She misread the abject agony of his face for 
grief for her, and saw her own sentence in it. 
Had there been any hope of life the king 
could not have been so moved. Once more 
she raised her hands with a gesture of invita- 
tion. ‘ Feltor ! ’ 

His limbs so shook beneath him that he 
fell upon his knees, and then hiding his 
face in both hands drooped down until his 
forehead touched the floor. Vreda smiled 
with a sublime despair, and little by little 
moved the weak hand which lay nearest to 
him until her Angers touched him. He 
shivered at the caress, and she closed her 
eyes, tasting inwardly all possible sweetnesses 
and bitternesses which lay in that mute and 
eternal farewell. It was not yet perhaps the 
hour of farewell, but her heart spoke it at 
that moment. 

A whisper, followed by the sound of a 
smothered girlish laugh from without, reached 
Wenegog’s ear. He passed the hanging of 
skins, and came sternly upon the watchers. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


31 


‘ Is this a time for mirth ? ’ he asked in a 
subdued voice of anger. ‘ Awake that slum- 
bering fool and begone.’ 

He re-entered the chamber, and the 
frightened girls awaking their companion 
stole silently away. Wenegog without a word 
placed the vessel of spar in the hands of 
Barxelhold, who accepted it tranquilly. Next, 
the Druid took from a recess in the wall a 
little cup of beaten gold, fantastically figured. 
In a corner of the apartment and by the outer 
wall bubbled a tiny runlet of water. A 
natural spring had been utilised here, and the 
water ran pure as crystal, breaking up within 
the wall, and finding its outlet through a hole 
pierced for that purpose. The old priest 
laved the cup deliberately, and shook it twice 
or thrice, dimpling the surface of the runnel 
with the falling drops. Then setting down 
the cup, he motioned silently to Barxelhold, 
and whilst in obedience to his gesture she held 
the vessel of spar in both hands towards him, 
he untied the thong of hide by which its 
covering Avas secured. Then, still with the 
same inexorable deliberateness, he poured a 


32 


OAr£ TRAVELLER RETURNS 


part of the potion into the cup, and without 
a word placed it in his daughter’s hand, 
and motioned with a forefinger towards the 
queen. 

Feltor had fallen further, and now fairly 
grovelled at the side of Vreda’s couch. Her 
drooping fingers toyed with his hair, and she 
lay smiling mournfully towards the roof. 
Barxelhold stepped across the prostrate body 
of the king, and half kneeling beside the 
couch, and half reclining against it, insinuated 
one warm and supple arm between Vreda’s 
neck and the panther’s skin. The doomed 
queen turned and looked at her, and then 
looked upon the cup. 

‘ Why do you trouble me ? ’ she asked with 
a mournful smile. ‘ There is no hope.’ 

‘ Hay,’ said Barxelhold, smiling back at 
her. ‘My father is wise in all manner 
of simples. TVould he trouble you for 
nought ? ’ 

The look on the queen’s face changed, 
and, half supported by Barxelh old’s arm, she 
struggled into a sitting posture, and reached 
outgone hand towards the Druid. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


33 


* May I live ? ’ she asked gaspingly. ‘ Is 
there hope ? ’ 

‘The herbs I have chosen are of great 
power,’ Wenegog answered with an assured 
calm. ‘ They will not fail.’ 

‘ Do you hear, Feltor ? ’ cried the queen, 
with an almost frenzied joy which lent a 
momentary strength to her frame. ‘ There is 
hope I Feltor ! I shall not die. I shall not 
leave you, Feltor ! ’ 

i Feltor groaned aloud, and writhed upon 
the ground as if he would fain enter it and be 
hidden there. 

‘ Give me the cup,’ said Vreda, supporting 
herself on both hands. 

Barxelhold smiling down upon her, with a 
look of many meanings, advanced the draught 
steadily to Vreda’s lips, the warm supple arm 
wound about her victim’s neck meanwhile. 
The cup was at the eager lips when a cry was 
heard at the entrance of the chamber, and a 
dark-haired child cf three or four years of 
age ran to the couch, climbed upon it, and 
threw both arms about the queen’s neck, call- 
ing upon her as his mother. Barxelhold with- 


34 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


drew tlie cup in haste, lest its contents should 
be spilled, and looked venomously at the child. 

‘ ‘ I shall live for thee, httle one,’ Vreda 
murmured, straining him to her bosom. ‘ Tor 
thee and for thy father.’ 

The hanging curtains stirred again, and a 
strange figure entered the chamber — a dwarf, 
thick-set and swarthy, but in the face well 
favoured. He was quick and keen of eye, 
and his lips had an unconscious humorous 
twitch as if they felt the savour of good things 
unspoken. He wore a head-dress of the skin 
of an ass’s forehead, with the ears perked in- 
solently forward on either side, and on a thong 
running from an iron bangle on each upper 
arm to another on each wrist dangled a he- 
terogeneous assortment of feathered quills, 
which gave a grotesque similitude of wings. 
He wore a kilt of skin from waist to knee, but 
his thick-set legs and his deep hairy chest 
were naked. 

‘Thou ass-eared fool,’ said Wenegog, turn- 
ing upon him. ‘ What brings thee hither ? 
Wilt have the scourge and thy back made 
friends again ? ’ ■ : 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


35 


* They know each other well,’ said the 
dwarf, with a grimace half-deprecatory, half- 
humorous. ‘ Why should old friends be 
held asunder ? If my back must pay for the 
child’s fancies, even so let it be. It has done 
it aforetime and will again.’ 

The queen’s head fell laxly on the arm 
which encircled her, and the child began to 
scream. He was a lusty little fellow, and his 
cries rang through the chamber. Wenegog, 
with a sweep of his white beard and his white 
robe, strode over the figure of the king, seized 
the weeping child, and made as if he would 
throw him into the dwarf’s arms. He sur- 
rendered him to his guardian’s care more 
gently than face and gesture had seemed to 
promise. 

‘ Get thee gone ! ’ he muttered wrathfully 
through his beard. ‘ Wouldst slay the queen 
with the child’s brawling ? ’ 

The dwarf with both arms about the crying 
child went out comforting him. The noise of 
weeping came piercingly for a moment or two, 
and gradually faded into distance until it was 
heard no more. Barxelhold lowered Vreda’s 


36 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


head to the pillow, balancing the cup, lest any 
of the devilish brew should be wasted. Then 
there was silence whilst one might have 
counted five score. 

Vreda's eyes opened and her lips moved. 
Barxelhold bent her ear to listen. 

‘ The draught.’ 

Barxelhold smiled and nodded, raised the 
helpless head, and setting the cup to the lips, 
tilted it gradually until the last drop had 
gone. Vreda shuddered, and the girl, rising 
swiftly to her feet, let fall her victim’s head 
and the empty cup at the same instant. The 
metal tinkled loudly as it fell on a space of the 
hard-beaten earth between the scattered skins, 
and Feltor looking wildly up, saw a splendid 
horror and triumph in the murderess’s face. 
He knew that the thing was done, and stag- 
gering to his feet went swaying and reeling 
towards the curtain. Wenegog laid a heavy 
hand upon his breast. 

‘ Coward ! ’ cried Barxelhold. ‘ Where go 
you with that tell-tale face ? Art a man ? ’ 
She moved in a passion of victory and scorn, 
seized a great tankard and plunged it bodily 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


37 


into an open granite jar of Gallic wine, and 
held it out to him. ‘ Find a heart there I ’ she 
cried. 

Her hand reeked with the purple wine, 
and she stood before him with blazing eyes. 
Feltor took the tankard and drank with 
animal noises, greedily. He emptied the 
vessel, plunged it back into the jar and drank 
again. 

‘ What is this ? ’ said Vreda, writhing on 
the couch. ‘ Feltor ! I am burning ! I am 
dying ! ’ 

‘ Ay ! ’ said Barxelhold, standing over her 
couch in a cold rage. ‘ Surely ! You are 
dying, Vreda.’ 

‘ Feltor ! ’ shrieked the queen. ‘ Feltor 1 
My Feltor ! Help me ! ’ 

‘ Thy Feltor ! ’ said Barxelhold, letting 
loose the devil in her soul. ‘ How came he 
thy Feltor ? Of whom didst steal him, 
Vreda?’ 

The arch-Druid, stooping for the fallen 
cup, and groping for it hither and thither in 
the shadow of the couch, looked up and 
laughed with a cold and mirthless approval 


38 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


of the question. When his hand touched the 
cup he arose tranquilly, and taking both it 
and the bottle of spar to the little runnel of 
clear water, washed them there with a busi- 
nesshke composure. 

‘ The poor tribal chieftain pleased the 
queen’s eyes,’ said Barxelhold, mocking her 
victim. ‘ The fool must needs take greatness 
when it came to him, but left his heart behind. 
Thinkest he loved thee, perchance ? Not he I 
Love thee, thou thing of stone ! ’ 

The queen struggled dreadfully to rise, 
but her strength failed her. She turned her 
glance on Feltor, who hid his face in his hands 
and, averting his head, supported himself 
against the wall. From that moment her 
gaze did not leave him, save when in some 
spasm of extreme pain her eyes closed. Once, 
and once only, Feltor dared to look at her. 
Her glance spoke so much of what was strange 
and awful that it pierced his soul. There was 
a wild wonder in the look, and an anguish 
beyond words. 

Barxelhold railed and mocked, and the 
old Druid stood smiling. Suddenly he moved 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


39 


forward. The queen had lain motionless for 
a minute. He set his hand upon her shoulder. 
The body yielded to the weight he leaned 
upon it and the head swayed round. He 
looked quietly upon her for a little space, 
and then turning, walked from the chamber. 
Barxelhold’s railing had ceased and there 
was silence. 

The old man’s solemn voice rose in the 
wide hall beyond ; 

‘ Listen, sons and daughters of There.’ 

Ir the dead silence of the inner room, the 
faint rustle and murmur of the crowd was 
heard clearly. The voice of Wenegog rose 
again i 

‘Your queen is dead.’ 

Then there was a pause, and, after it, a 
great clamour of wailing. 

Peltor turned and looked up. Barxelhold 
hurled herself upon his breast with a trium- 
phant cry : 

‘MyFeltorl 


40 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


CHAPTER m. 

These things the released soul of Vreda the 
queen heard and saw. On a sudden, when 
the body was racked with pains unspeakable, 
and the sick frame was filled with loathings 
of itself, there had arisen within her a pang 
so dreadful that it may barely be thought of, 
and thereafter fell upon her a most heavenly 
peace and rest. Barxelh old’s voice railed on, 
but it was powerless to afflict her. And 
whilst yet she wondered at the calm which 
had come upon her, the voice of Wenegog 
spoke in the outer hall. 

‘ Listen, sons and daughters of There I 
Your queen is dead 1 ’ 

And Vreda knew that this was the secret 
of her rest. 

She looked down upon tne fleshly hnuse 
she had inhabited and was touched with a 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


41 


cold and shadowy pity. She saw Feltor shiver 
beneath Barxelhold’s guilty embrace, and she 
knew that she had forgiven them both already. 
Barxelhold’s murderous joy and Feltor’s lust 
and fear were as real to the soul of the queen 
as their bodily presence before her. She 
stretched out hands which were the ethereal 
presentment of those which lay motionless in 
death, and with an impulse of dispassionate 
pardon and farewell she laid them on the 
heads of the hving. They started guiltily 
apart, staring upon each other with a vivid 
horror, and whether she were rapt away from 
them, or they from her, she knew not. They 
were gone, and but for the new and as yet 
strange calm and quiet, all was gone. ‘ 

And there was neither sound nor silence, 
nor light nor dark, nor heat nor cold, nor 
height nor depth, nor place, nor anything 
save that self which existed and was at peace. 

Then out of this empty negation grew a 
something palpable to the soul as the hving 
hand is palpable to the living hand, and 
Vreda beheld (as it were) a woman of this 
world, nude, and of a lofty and tranquil coun- 


42 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


tenance. And being new to her estate Vreda 
would have spoken, asking of the woman 
many things, but here there was no language 
or need of language, and the soul of the queen 
knew that the woman had answered : 

‘Ask, and what I know shall be made 
known to you.’ 

And Vreda desired within herself to know 
who the woman might be, and thereupon she 
knew that in old days the woman had been a 
queen in Heracleon, and that her husband had 
slain her. 

Vreda’s soul thought, seeing that the soul 
of the woman was very beautiful : 

‘ That is as a bond between us, for I also 
was slain by my husband’s will.’ 

And the soul of the woman answered in 
the soul of Vreda : 

‘ Thou art fairer than I, and it shall be as 
a bond.’ 

Then Vreda was aware of more than calm 
and rest, and she loved the fair soul before 
her, and for a while they were as one, with a 
great sweetness of contentment. 

And Vreda learned within herself by the 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


43 


thoughts of the other that the woman had 
left the earth for nigh three hundred years of 
earthly time — for here measurement of time 
was not — and had not until now encountered 
so dear a companion. And desiring to know 
the things of her estate, she learned from her 
that had been queen in Heracleon that there 
was for them neither space nor place, nor 
sight nor hearing, but that the dwellers in 
that estate were aware of each other when 
they desired it. Shape was not, yet it grew 
to the perception of the spirit, and where 
it had come about that there was love be- 
tween souls, they met for the mere thinking 
of it. 

Then, pondering upon these things and 
asking whether or no there were many souls 
in the same estate, she was aware of multi- 
tude upon multitude, and nation upon nation, 
and age upon age, of all peoples upon the 
earth, and all worlds that people the heavens. 
And they intermingled with each other and 
passed through one another. But when Vreda 
pondered upon other things, it was again as 
if these souls were not. 


44 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


And inquiring of the name of her com- 
panion, she knew that it had been Kalyris. 

Then, sojourning in that estate, Vreda 
communed with many spirits, but with none 
so gladly as with the soul of Kalyris. And 
there were some, of whom to be aware was a 
shrinking of the soul — the spirits of things 
that had done ghastly deeds in early worlds 
whereon the light of God had not shined. 

It came to pass when she was with Kalyris 
that a yearning fell upon her, and that the 
thoughts of Kalyris strove to translate it. For 
the thoughts of Kalyris made themselves 
known to the thoughts of Vreda, after the 
manner of their being, saying : 

‘ There is an estate whereof I know and I 
know not. This I know, that all souls that 
enter therein are blessed, and their longings 
are appeased. There be in our estate who 
have borne it upon me, that a sacrifice was 
appointed from the beginning whereby all 
souls might enter that glory. There is no 
hollow of bygone time nor any abyss of time 
to be, in any world which has fallen from the 
hand of the Maker of all things whereto the 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


4S 


sacrifice reaches not. And when Time was 
the sacrifice was accomplished between my 
time and thine. And the fruit of the sacrifice 
is that all souls that live in all worlds shall 
grow toward the likeness of the beauty of him 
that was sacrificed, and shall enter into that 
glory when they are worthy to be beheld. 

‘ And there is one who in the tongues of 
men is called Michael, and in the tongues of 
the dwellers in other worlds by many names, 
and in the thoughts of them that speak not, 
but think one unto another, by thoughts not 
to be interpreted. And in his countenance 
there is an exceeding great glory, passing the 
glory of the sun at noonday. And he visiteth 
this estate when his Maker commandeth, and 
the light of his countenance shineth upon 
many, and unto them that it shineth upon is 
made known that they may ask the boon they 
will. And the boon that is craved of all souls 
is that they may be with him unto whose hke- 
ness they have grown.’ 

Then Kalyiis knew that this was not yet 
the answer to the yearnings of Vreda. 

And Vreda’s soul rested hungry and un- 


46 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


satisfied, until upon a sudden she knew that 
her desire was to see her child, and the desire 
being known to her grew into an agony. Then 
she marvelled that from the hour of her death 
she had done aught but long foi the child, 
for she could net, know that all things were 
ordained for her. The agony grew in the 
soul of Vreda until it would no longer be re- 
sisted, for thus in that estate it is ordained. 
And for a while she fought with what she 
knew not, and was in terrible travail, till the 
pain of her longing was victorious and she 
beheld the child as it were with mortal eyes. 

And she knew that it had been granted to 
her for a moment to leave her estate, and to 
return to the bounds of time and place. 

The child Wankard lay weeping alone. 
He was nigh upon two years older than when 
she had last embraced him. The hut wherein 
he lay was bare to a pitiless sky, and the wind 
howled in the crevices of it. The floor was 
sodden, and the child was stretched upon it 
without covering. He was wounded and 
bleeding, and the soul of his mother strove 
in vain to be of comfort to him ; and with 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


47 


tliat the vision allowed her was at an end, 
and she returned to her own estate, remem- 
bering what she had seen. 

Then it came to pass with the soul of 
Vreda that the pain of her yearning was yet 
sorer than it had been, and when she held 
communion with Kalyris there was nothing 
but this thought of between them. 

And again she fought with what she knew 
not ; and the torture of her travail was yet 
more terrible, till the pain of her longing was 
victorious. And in the space which was 
allotted to her she saw that her people were 
in misery, and that many of the followers of 
David were tortured and in bonds, and that 
Feltor the king and Barxelhold the queen 
rioted in the shedding of blood. And there 
was great compassion within her for the king 
and for the queen, and for the things which 
should befall them afterwards ; and the space 
allotted to her and the vision permitted came 
to an end, and she returned again to her own 
estate, remembering what she had seen. 

And, as it were, upon a sudden there was 
a mighty gathering of the souls that were in 


48 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


that estate, and the souls were aware one of 
the other. And they were of all peoples, of 
all worlds, and of all times that have been, a 
multitude beyond number. 

Then Vreda knew from the knowledge of 
them that were about her that the coming of 
the Messenger of Light was expected, but as 
yet there was neither light nor dark. Then 
it was as if there were a beginning of light, 
and with the beginning of light a begin- 
ning of darkness. And the light grew to an 
exceeding glory, and the darkness to a hor- 
ror of darkness. And the glory dwelt upon 
thousands that no man might number, and 
the horror of the darkness upon thousands of 
thousands that no man might number. And 
the glory dwelt upon Vreda, and she knew 
that her boon would be granted unto her. 

And her soul agonised, and the voice of 
the agony of her prayer ascended : 

‘Let me return to the earth, whereon I 
wrought evil in the days of my life, and let 
me lead my people to the truth.’ 

And behold there was before her another 
multitude, and the faces of the multitude 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


49 


were bright with peace. And many in their 
midst beckoned unto her, and she knew that 
there was no grief among them. 

Yet she agonised the more, and the voice 
of the agony of her prayer ascended : 

‘ Let me return to the earth and lead my 
people to the truth.’ 

And lo ! the multitude was not, and she 
stood clothed in flesh upon the earth. 


so 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


CHAPTEE IV. 

The lusty summer sun was shining on the 
woods of Surfled, and the air was full of the 
hoarse music of horns. Deep in the forest, 
in a natural glade, Barxelhold, beaming with 
coquettish graces, made her throne on the 
prostrate body of a wild bull, slain an hour 
earlier in the chase. A light shawl of Cyprian 
wool formed her robe, fastened on the hip 
and on the shoulder by golden clasps. Over 
the right shoulder a leopard skin was brought 
across the body and fastened around the 
waist by a broad band of red hide. The 
woollen robe opened at the right hip and 
showed a rounded limb encased in strips of 
soft deerskin held together by laced thongs, 
and from knee to ankle embraced by greaves 
formed of split ox-horn. Her little feet were 
covered with soft red hide, bound by thongs 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 51 

of the same colour. The left breast and both 
arms were bare, and her bright yellow hair 
flowed about her shoulders. A cap of fine 
red-dyed hide edged with a circle of gold 
crowned her with a careless and saucy grace. 

A pyramid of dead game, wild ox, deer — 
red, fallow, and roe — boar, wolf and bear, 
rose intermixed pell-mell behind her, and the 
glade was filled by groups of huntsmen and 
beaters. Here were half-a-dozen wild fel- 
lows, tanned and bearded, holding each a 
leash of huge brindled bull-dogs, big as the 
mastifi" of to-day, brutes with broad white toes 
and black square muzzles, fierce and silent. 
Theie was no bell-mouthed music where these 
beasts ran, for they chased and killed their 
quarry without a sound. Here, at rest, one 
would yawn now and again, and one would 
growl, but out of mere contentment and the 
joy of a full stomach. The men who had 
charge of them wore a sort of rude uniform to 
indicate their ofiice, a kilt of boarskin, a hfead- 
dress of the same, with the savage curved 
tusks of the beast gleaming on either side the 
head, and a short spear and a bull’s horn 


Sa 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


slung right and left by ropes of bark across 
the naked shoulders. 

The boar huntsmen carried short spears, 
the bull huntsmen wore kilts of the red hide 
of their quarry, and bore weapons which were 
a combination of axe and lance. The nets* 
men bore long nets of stout bark rope and 
thong. Here and there in the crowd, em- 
ployed for mere purposes of burden, were 
serfs, prisoners of war from other nations, 
whose condition was proclaimed by the iron 
collar worn about the neck. 

Bending over Barxelhold was a personage 
who, for his time and place, was something of 
a dandy. His attire was a curious blending 
of Eoman civilisation and British barbarism. 
He was clad in a tunic of the Eoman cut, of 
yellow wool trimmed with square lappets, 
with an embroidered edge of blue. Over the 
tunic he wore a cincture of polished brass 
studded with silver stars, and the brass sheath 
of ’ a short Eoman sword clanked gently 
against this as he moved. He wore knee caps 
of metal, greaves 'of red leather, and sandals 
of wood, the red straps of which were en- 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


53 


nched with silver. The most distinctively 
native note in his costume was the wolfskin 
head-dress which crowned his gold-red hair. 
His locks were braided on either side his 
head, and the plaits fell backwards over his 
shoulders. 

This was Osweng, chief of the Lennian 
nation, then subjugated by the Eomans, and 
held in much contempt by their hardier 
neighbours. He and Barxelhold were near 
each other oftener than Feltor cared to know, 
and the king with his broad back planted 
against an oak tree, and an untasted horn of 
ale lifted half-way to his lips, lowered upon 
the pair with a sidelong look of jealousy. 
The young Osweng, with many affectations of 
posture, fanned the queen with a leafy oak 
branch, and murmured compliments with 
such posings and glancings as he had seen 
employed by Eoman gallants within the 
garrisoned walls of Deva. Barxelhold shot 
arch glances at him, or, if the murmured 
compliment were too open even for the full- 
flavoured fashion of the time, turned away 
with mock shyness. 


54 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


Feltor, lowering more and more, lifted 
the horn to his lips, emptied it, stiU glaring 
sideways at his wife and the foolish suitor, and 
then with a savage gesture hurled it away. 

Not far from the queen and Osweng sat a 
group of hard-bitten and sinewy old warriors 
at the end of their forest meal. Among them 
was one Eoedweg, a giant of a man, with a 
beard of tawny grey, eyes like a hawk’s and a 
nose like the hawk’s beak. 

‘ Look ye there,’ said Eoedweg, who was 
a man of privilege, and spoke his mind when 
and where he would. He flung a great hairy 
bare arm in the direction of the young Osweng 
with a broad gesture of disdain. ‘ Nowadays 
they call that a man. Plaiteth himself like a 
woman, and loveth fighting as I love drouth. 
Before There, the land is coming to be nothing 
worth. The lads piping small like the lasses, 
and cutting of their beards to look womanly. 
Fellows that will not drink to their peg at a 
dinner nor risk their skins in fight. Where 
be the lads I knew in youth ? The crows are 
lusty and shiny over many a score of them. 
Feast is well enough. Who loveth a feast 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 55 

after a fight better than I? or, for matter 
of that, before it? But all feast and no 
fight?’ He wrinkled his tough old muzzle 
in disgust. ‘ Who hath drunk all the mead ? 
Give me the mead, Doedek, lest I smite thee 
over that bald scalp of thine. Ha ! Hast 
fangs yet, old wolf-dog ! Why, I love thee 
for it. Wouldst fight ? Nay — hit something 
older or younger than I be.’ 

Now all this, as the privileged old war- 
hound meant it to be, was audible ahke to 
Barxelhold and Osweng. The queen laughed 
mischievously as her courtier changed colour, 
and transferring the oak bough to his left 
hand laid the right upon the embossed hilt of 
his short sword. 

‘ Once on a while,’ proceeded Eoedweg, 
grimly noticing this gesture, and winking on 
the attentive circle, ‘a chief bore a long 
sword, and it was held for a sign of his rank. 
Now as honour shorteneth they shorten the 
blade. And look ye, lads, of all things 
loathly under the clouds this new way with 
women is the worst. Who talketh to his ale- 
horn before drinking? “ Dear ale, I am athirst. 


56 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

and dear ale, thou art sweet, and sweet ale, 1 
do desire thee.” Drink, and have done ! I am 
mad at this muddhng of the women’s heads 
with speeches. The woman is the man’s 
prize, and hath been ever, save when the man- 
fool clippeth and braideth and adorneth him- 
self, and will not please the woman-fool out of 
his manhhood but by falling into her likeness. 
It was ever so, lads, I tell ye, from the days 
of the gods downwards — since Odan tripped 
There on the greenoward and there was a 
beginning of Britons.’ 

With this the huge old war-dog was 
aware that all eyes in the circle were bent 
laughingly on something behind him, and 
ere he could turn his liead a soft warm arm 
slid down by his ear, and embraced his 
grizzled old throat below the tawny grey 
beard, and gently with a series of mild per- 
suasive tugs coaxed his head backwards. 
And obeying these gentle little tugs, with a 
countenance exceeding grim, he rolled half 
over and saw Barxelhold bending above him, 
and looking down upon him with mischievous 
relishing laughter in her eyes. At that Koed- 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 57 

weg’s sweeping moustache parted on a sudden 
from his sweeping beard, reveahng a cavern ' 
edged with teeth as sparkling white as a dog’s, j 
and he let out a great laugh like a thunder 
with no malice in it. Barxelhold tweaked his j 
ear as if she would wring it from his head, 
but he laughed the louder, and at the last the^ 
queen boxed his ears with both hands together, ! 
at the which he laughed the louder yet. | 
‘ ’Tis strange, lads,’ he said, with a sudden ' 
air of philosophy, ‘ that any should take a 
pleasure in smiting that they cannot hurt. 
Now, what with drink from within and buffets 
from without, my he.ad hath grown to be hke 
oak, and it is a pity that such soft hands 
should be bruised against it. For soft hands 
become the women-folk somehow. I know 
not how. Who hath drunk all the mead, 
Aidan ? Give it hither.’ 

He drank and chuckled, and wiped his 
beard with the back of his brown hand. , 
‘ There will be no more days hke the old 
days,’ he said, when the queen had gone back 
to her place, and had resumed her conversa- 
tion with Osweng. ‘ There is no pith in the 


58 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


lads’ bones. Why, when I was held prisoner 
by the Eoman legionary over at Deva yonder, 
the chief men among them would sing to 
stringed instruments of music, not like the 
harp — which is a thing a man may laugh at 
or rage over, or weep if it so please him — ^but 
a thing a maid might carry, and they sang to 
the women-folk, and the women- folk to them. 
And ’twas these who beat the lads of Lennia. 
I have been like to vomit at the thinking of it 
many a time. But I tell ye, valour is depart- 
ing out of the earth, and the old days are 
done with. They will never see our like 
again. We began with the gods, and every 
generation groweth punier. They will end 
Avith times when Heurtan would be held to be 
a giant.’ 

Just then there was a stir in the crowd of 
huntsmen and beaters, and Barxelhold and 
Feltor, looking up at the same moment to seek 
the reason of it, saw the tall white-robed 
figure of Wenegog advancing with a rapidity 
which took nothing from the stern dignity of 
his pre.sence. His eyes sought and found his 
daughter and the king, and he raised a hand 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 59 

to each of them. Then he passed through 
the glade, and entering upon a forest avenue, 
awaited them there. The chieftains rose and 
gathered in groups, looking after him and the 
pursuing figures of their king and queen, for 
this sudden intrusion upon the kingly sport 
seemed to indicate something of importance. 

The Druid turned to await the arrival of 
Barxelhold and Feltor. 

‘ What tidings now ? ’ the king demanded. 

‘Ill tidings,' W^eaegog answered. ‘The 
fool Heurtan hath taken Wankard again and 
again to the cave of the Blasphemer David. 
And last night both the fool and the child 
were sprinkled with water, and David spake 
incantations over them, and they are with him 
and of his heresy.’ 

Barxelhold and Feltor exchanged glances, 
Feltor looking on his consort with menace 
and reluctance, and she regarding him with 
an aspect of triumph. 

‘ Who brought word of this ? ’ asked Feltor 
gloomily. 

‘ I bring Avord of it,’ answered Wenegog. 
* Let that be enough.’ He turned to his 


6o 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


daughter. ‘ There is no child of thy body,’ 
he said with a momentary gentleness, ‘ and 
thus,’ facing round on Feltor with a sudden 
cold wrath and resolve, ‘ this heretic spawn of 
thine might rule the land, and the work we 
did for the gods three years since might be 
undone. But there shall be an end of folly 
and an end of the blasphemers. Thirty and 
three of them were at their heathen rites 
last night, and thirty and one are in my hand 
already.’ 

‘ No hair of the child shall be hurt fur- 
ther,’ said Feltor doggedly. ‘ Hast crippled 
lim already.’ 

‘ We speak not yet of the child,’ Wenegog 
answered. ‘ Heurtan hath borne him away, 
and hath saved himself for awhile.’ 

» * Wankard is too young for the gods to be 
angered by him,’ said Feltor. ‘ How knoweth 
he what hath been done with him ? ’ 

‘ 1 think Feltor is half-smitten with this 
plague,’ Barxelhold said smilingly. 

The king, with a face grown pale, turned 
upon her and searched her with his eyes. 

* Art tired already ? ’ he asked. ‘ Wouldst 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 6i 

have my life also, and take yonder jay from 
Deva in my place ? ’ 

Barxelhold, looking at him with an enig- 
matical face, raised her eyebrows and slowly 
nodded twice or thrice, whether in wonder at 
this burst of jealousy or in confirmation of it 
he could not tell. 

‘ How know I,’ muttered Feltor, ‘ but the 
next horn I empty may be the last ? ’ 

Barxelhold laughed with a sudden tanta- 
lising brightness, and then taking his clenched 
hand in hers drew it, in spite of some resist- 
ance, around her neck and nestled to him, 
looking upwards to his glooniy eyes. 

‘ Art a great fool by times, Feltor.’ 

The soft contact of her supple figure 
thrilled through him, as it did always, and 
his eyes began to hunger at her. Wenegog 
wrinkled his keen nose in contempt and spoke 
again. 

‘ Huertan passed nigh by here with the 
child but a while agone. He hath made for 
one of the heretic’s fox-earths. Let them 
be found, and let an end be made of mad- 


ness. 


62 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


* As you will,’ said Feltor, and turning, he 
called hoarsely upon Roedweg, who rose at 
his voice and approached with soldierly ala- 
crity, ‘ Heurtan the fool,’ said Feltor, ‘ has 
borne away my child, and it is thought that 
he has sought one of the hiding-places of the 
Christian. Take a band of a score. Find 
him and David likewise, and bring them 
bound to me. Let no harm come to the 
child.’ 

Eoedweg drew his long sword in silence, 
and with it signalled to one who stood amidst 
a group of huntsmen. The man raised a horn 
to his lips and sounded Roedweg’s caU. 
Straightway all of the old war-dog’s follow- 
ing rose and gathered together ; and he, 
going to meet them, chose the men he 
had need of and gave his orders. The men 
marched away into the forest avenues, north 
and south and east, and went rusthng in 
alternate shine and shadow through the un- 
dergrowth. 

Barxelhold shpped from Feltor’s arm, and 
without a word sauntered to where Osweng 
stood beside the slain wild bull. The king 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


03 


followed her awhile, but when she paused by 
Osweng he also paused, and seeing the horn 
he had thrown away from him awhile before, 
he stamped upon it with a passionate rage. 
Then, recovering himself from this outburst, 
he gave orders for the return. There was a 
clamour of horns and voices, and in a few 
minutes the broad sun-dappled glade had 
fallen back to. the solitude and silence which 
of right belonged to it. 


64 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


CHAPTER 

On the northward-facing coast of Wales 
stands a prodigious headland overlooking the 
Irish Sea. When There and Odan visited the 
world it was on this great headland that they 
set up their habitation, and the superstitious 
fancy of the Coerleans held the ground sacred. 
On the bald brow of the hill the mortal re- 
mains of Vreda had lain for now three years 
uncovered from the airs of heaven. Her 
people had robed the dead form in silks from 
Phoenicia, and had hung gems of price about 
her neck, and set the regal circlet of gold 
upon her brow. They had built a pyramid of 
unhewn stones on the edge of the sheer preci- 
pice, and after solemn pomp of obsequy had 
left the dead to silence and decay. 

Twice daily, at morning and at evening, a 
Druid climbed the height and fed the fire 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


65 


which slumbered beside the cairn. On quiet 
days the smoke of the pyre rose high into the 
air, and in tempestuous times it streamed 
wildly inland or seaward as the storm drove 
it ; and always it was a sign of sorrow to the 
people. 

At irregular intervals the solitude of the 
wild place of rest was broken by the incursion 
of parties sent thither to hew wood for the 
funeral fire. There were stories among the 
Scots pirates, whjpse httle vessels scourged the 
seas thereabouts — and who dwelt upon the 
northern Irish coast — to the purport that the 
queen lay amidst marvellous treasures, and 
they cast concupiscent glances towards the 
column of smoke which betrayed the neigh- 
bourhood of those fancied riches. They were 
daring enough for most things, but the most 
daring amongst them did no more than 
dream of the rich find which might have been 
made there, if the treasure had not been 
under the direct guardianship of the gods. 

After the death of Vreda strange things 
happened to David. His life had always been 
strange, and if the story of it were told to- 

F 


66 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


day it would sound as incredible as a fairy 
tale. But in all his spiritual experiences he 
had known nothing like the commanding 
impulse which controlled him now. That 
impulse drove him often to one thing that had 
no apparent purpose in it, but he obeyed 
without question, patiently awaiting the time 
when the meaning of his own act should be 
made clear to him. 

Three months after the death of Vreda the 
impulse first came upon him. He awoke in 
the dead of night, and not knowing wliy or 
wherefore, he sought the place where the 
queen had been laid. He ascended the 
height with pain, stumbling often in the dark- 
ness, and reaching the foot of the cairn, he 
plucked a brand from the smouldering fire, 
swung it into the air until it flamed, and then 
bearing it in his right hand, climbed the 
rugged pile of stones. The cairn was sunk at 
the top, and in the hollow lay the remains of 
Vreda. The Phoenician silks were torn to a 
thousand tatters by the beaks of carrion birds 
and the jewels lurking amid the rags flashed 
here and there in the light of the torch. The 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


67 


regal cin^let, and the armlets and anklets of 
gold, lay tarnished amid the bleaching bones. 

David beholding this, wept aloud, but in 
a little while a strange quietude fell upon him, 
and he returned to his cave in a surprising 
peace of spirit. 

The impulse came upon him often, and he 
obeyed it the more wilhngly that his visits to 
the cairn were always followed by the same 
inscrutable calm. He had the greater need 
of this comfort because he found day by 
day the number of his adherents growing 
smaller, and because the few who were left to 
him met in imminent danger of death. Many 
had died already, hideously, and many others 
had fallen away from the new faith through 
fear. At last there was left to him a mere 
handful of some thirty souls, whereas in the life- 
time of Vreda he had numbered his followers 
by hundreds. This remnant met in caves, 
and their pastor lived the life of a wild beast, 
a saint, and a hero. He fed on roots and 
berries, and drank the rank -water of the fens. 
Night by night he changed his resting-place, 
and night by night he lay down not in fear 


68 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


but in hope that it might please God to bring 
his enemies upon him, and so take from his 
weary shoulders the burthen of a duty which 
had grown almost too heavy for him. 

News reached him often of the doings 
of Feltor and Barxelhold, who held heathen 
orgies in the house of Vreda, and of Wene- 
gog, who offered frequent human sacrifice to 
his gods. 

Thus the three years had gone by in grow- 
ing anguish and harassment, and the hopes he 
had once held for the increase of the faith in 
the land were almost dead within him. 

He sat alone at the mouth of a cave upon 
a hillside. The sun had set half an hour be- 
fore, but there was no refreshment in the air, 
which brooded heavy and motionless upon 
the forest below him. There was a stormy 
glow in the west, and elsewhere the sky was 
livid. Not a bird chirped, or shy wild thing 
of the woods rustled the undergrowth. The 
silence sank upon his heart like lead. 

The forest stretched far and far away be- 
fore him like a green sea of arrested billows, 
and at its utmost rim a ragged line of black 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


69 


cloud pushed up into the heavens as if of its 
own volition. No merest breath disturbed 
the tranquillity of the lower air, but the far- 
off cloud chmbed fast and poured up its black 
battahons north and south and west, em- 
bracing half the circle of the sky. Its gloom 
saturated the forest rim, and then sponged it 
out of sight, and the dark advance-guard 
wreathed and rolled and swayed and streamed 
in the fury of a tempest as yet inaudible. 

David was weary in soul and body, and as 
he watched the approaching storm the first 
sleep he had known for days fell upon him 
with a weight which he had neither wish nor 
power to resist. His head dropped heavily 
forward, his arms hung lax and motionless at 
his sides, and he sat hke a statue of fatigue 
at rest. 

The first notes of the thunder threatened 
far away, and the first breath of tempest 
smote the trees and sent them shuddering and 
moaning. Swift lightnings split the dense 
blackness of the cloud, but the Saint neither 
saw nor heard. 

Suddenly, before a drop of rain had fallen 


70 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


there arose a noise of rustling in the wood, as 
of some heavy body forcing a way through 
the undergrowth. It drew nearer and nearer to 
the cave, and at the moment when the heavens 
opened with one crash and deluge of thunder 
and flame and rain, Heurtan the jester burst 
from, the wood carrying the child upon his 
shoulder. The sudden breaking of the storm 
so blinded him that for the moment he did 
not perceive the slumbering Saint, but bear- 
ing headlong on, he dashed into the cave, and 
setting down the child upon the floor, wrung 
the moisture from his hair and eyes. Then 
breathing hard he stared about him, and 
started on beholding David, who sat with the 
wind-driven spray of the rain flying in upon 
him, unconscious. 

‘ Is he dead ? ’ cried Heurtan aloud. He 
seized upon the old man’s hand and found 
it warm, but the rain spray glittered on face 
and beard and naked feet, and the old man’s 
solitary garment of torn woollen stiifi* was 
sprinkled with it like hoar-frost. The brawny 
dwarf passed an arm beneath his knees, and 
another about his waist, and, lifting the spare 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


71 


figure, gently bore it into the cave. The 
change of posture, softly as it was effected, 
shot burning pains through the old man’s 
joints, and he awoke, muttering and strug- 
gling against his bearer. ‘ Have no fear,’ 
cried Heurtan. 

‘ Why art thou here ? ’ asked David, as 
the jester helped him to his feet. He knew 
the voice, but the interior of the cave was 
black as night, and neither could see the 
other. A burst of thunder drowned Heur- 
tan’s first words and made him pause. The 
wind scourged them even here, and bore the 
flying rain spray in wild eddies of mist, unseen 
but felt. 

‘All are captured,’ Heurtan shouted, when 
the thunder had rolled away. The clanging 
of the wind about the cavern sounded like 
the clapping of innumerable wings. ‘The 
queen’s child and I are alone escaped, and the 
chase is now afoot for us and thee.’ 

David gave no answer. 

The child wailed in the wet darkness, and 
Heurtan, sitting on the rocky floor beside him, 
took him to his arms. At moments the 


72 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


lisrhtning showed the inmates of the cave to 
one another. The Saint stood staring towards 
the grey veil of water at the cave’s mouth 
which blackened constantly as the gloom of 
night fell deeper on the gloom of the storm. 
Over and over again the thick falling flashes 
revealed the gaunt figure and the absorbed 
unchanging look. Then on a sudden his 
place was vacant. The jester called on him, 
and hearing no reply arose and sought for 
him with groping hands. He explored every 
cranny of the walls, and traversed every foot 
of the uneven floor upon his hands and knees. 

Before Heurtan had convinced himself 
that David was ' no longer in the cavern, the 
old man had already struggled far up the 
steep hillside. That mysterious and over- 
mastering impulse which had so often assailed 
him was again upon him, and this time with 
a force he had never felt before. An inward 
and untranslatable voice that would not be 
denied drove liim to the resting-place of the 
queen, and his worn body, in spite of the 
fatigues which had but an hour ago lain so 
heavily upon it, was filled with a force 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


?3 


which seemed more than natural. His rain- 
soaked vesture clogged his steps, the lightning 
and thunder seemed to flame and bellow about 
his very head, the wind bufieted and the 
deluge blinded him. But that imperious im- 
pulse from within upheld him, and he fought 
his way upwards in a mad breathless haste, 
often stumbling, sometimes falling, at times 
waist-deep in some wild watercourse, at 
times tangled in briars, and at times turned 
aside by some huge rock too precipitous to 
chmb. 

At last, bruised and torn in every limb, 
but as yet conscious of no pain, he reached 
the summit, and at that instant a great banner 
of lightning flamed out upon the darkness 
and waved wildly whilst a man might have 
counted three. Every fissure in the grey 
cairn, every outline of the uneven stones, and 
every blade of grass and patch of moss and 
leaf of fern that nature’s hand had fostered 
there since the queen had been laid down to 
rest stood clear and distinct before him. It 
was as if the light of heaven had cried to him 
with a living voice — Behold I 


74 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


He made his way to the foot of the cairn. 
The funeral fire, unextinguished but half 
blackened by the rain, winked redly in its 
crevices and hissed. He stumbled upon a 
branch that lay beside it, and seizing this he 
stirred the fire until it blazed again in defi- 
ance of the dense rain, and then drawing a 
great brand from it he ascended to the top of 
the cairn and knelt upon the edge. Another 
flaming banner floated out over all the 
heavens, and looking down whilst everything 
was clearer to sight than at broad noonday, 
he saw the tarnished gold and shining gems 
inch-deep in rain-spotted water amidst a few 
soaked rags of silk. He saw the bare stones 
black with the water that filtered between 
their interstices, but not a remnant of the 
frame that the soul of Vreda the gueen had 
worn was there. 

As he looked the swift light died swiftly, 
and he was left in the pitchy darkness of the 
night again. He waved the hissing brand he 
carried until it flamed, and by its light ex- 
amined the open tomb anew. The gems 
were there, and the tatters of the funeral robe 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


75 


and the darkened circles of gold — but these 
were aU. 

A great and terrible awe seized upon him, 
and he knelt in expectation of some unknown 
terror. But no voice spoke from within or 
without, and when he had strengthened his 
heart in prayer he descended from the cairn. 
And when he was but a httle way from it the 
awe he had felt came back upon him with 
tenfold power, and the sense of a near pre- 
sence smote him with an extreme dread. In 
this trembling of the soul he could not tell 
whether the presence were of good or evil, 
but he cried out upon it with a loud and 
hollow voice, demanding to know what it 
might be. 

And a voice answered him from the dark- 
ness : 

‘1 \tn Vredal * 


176 


OJVE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


CHAPTER VI. 

On the eastern side of the woods of Surfled, 
between the forest and the estuary of the 
sea, lay a great tract of open grass-grown 
land. Here nine-and-thirty enormous stones 
marked a circle. They stood a hundred 
yards apart or thereabouts, and allowing for 
the width of the stones themselves, the circle 
was thus a little more than two-thirds of a 
mile in diameter. The stones were un- 
trimmed, uneven in form and size, and of a 
purplish-grey tinge. At a distance of about 
four hundred and fourscore yards sprang an 
inner circle of tliirteen stones only, and this 
inner circle Avas about four hundred and four- 
score yards in width. At its centre was yet 
another circle of less than a score yards in 
diameter, rounded by nine-and-thirty stones 
no more than breast high, and with ample 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


77 


room for a man to pass between each two of 
them. Within this final circle the earth was 
bare and scarred with traces of fire, for in the 
symbolism of the circles the circle of the gods 
embraced the circle of life, and the circle of 
life embraced the circle of death, and this 
inner ring enclosed the place of human sacri- 
fice by fire. 

There were men at work here preparing 
for the great triennial festival to Bel. The 
men were of the labouring order of the priest- 
hood, clothed in rough robes of sheepskin, 
mere bottomless sacks, which, supported by 
thongs across the shoulders, stretched from 
the armpits to the knees. About the waist 
each wore a broad belt of iron opening by a 
hinge and fastening with a bolt, and at the 
back of each belt was a ring through which 
were passed the thongs wherewith they 
tugged their loads. Three inen were within 
the fire-scarred enclosure, working with 
pointed trowels at the earth. A white-robed 
Druid with a chaplet of green oak leaves 
about his head and a wand of green ash in 
his hand stood looking on from without the 


78 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


circle, and the labourers sweated at the work 
beneath the taskmaster’s eye. They were 
digging a ringed trench, and this being 
already excavated to the depth of a foot, 
showed a circle of closely-ranged projecting 
stumps, charred at the top and stoutly set in 
the ground. 

Whilst this work was going on, other 
small groups were engaged in felling and 
trimming a number of young ash trees on the 
borders of the wood. Others with bundles of 
the slim trunks trailing behind them toiled 
painfully towards the centre circle. These as 
they arrived were ordered to assist in up- 
rooting the charred stumps, and as each 
stump was withdrawn it was replaced by a 
young ash trunk of some twelve feet in 
length. The ring being completed, the dis- 
placed earth was restored and beaten down 
with rammers of wood. The fire-hardened 
floor within was piled high with dry brush- 
wood, and upon this small logs and splittings, 
dry and green alike, were thrown, until the 
receptacle formed by the ring of tree trunks 
was almost filled. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


79 


Here the first day’s work closed, but with 
the morrow the labourers and their overseer 
were back again. The slim trunks were 
laced together basket fashion with green 
withes, and so formed into a firm circular 
wall. Then came a score of men, marching 
at a slow and even pace, and bearing upon 
their shoulders a huge structure of basket- 
work, some four yards wide at the base, of 
equal height, and shghtly tapering towards 
the top. The bottom was stoutly floored 
with wattled poles, and the top was open. 

This huge basket was set on the rim of 
the ring of tree trunks and there secured by 
many plies of green withe. This finished the 
second day’s work. 

The third day brought another huge 
basket, ball-shaped this time, but open at 
top and bottom, and before this was added to 
the structure a great sausage-shaped crate of 
Avithes was fastened to either side of it. Yet 
another basket, not so huge but ball-shaped 
like the last, and also open at top and bottom, 
completed the structure, which bore at last a 
grotesque resemblance to a human figure. 


8o 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


Vast, featureless head, set throatless on a 
formless bust, swollen gigantic arms curled 
and lax at the sides, and great skirts of 
stiff wattle ; a figure — remembering its uses 
— strangely like the faith it symbolised ; cruel 
and hideous, and at once grotesquely human 
and inhuman. 

There were touches of domesticity in- 
truded here at times. Women, bearing roast 
or sodden meat, loaves of black bread, and 
queghs of water, were followed by their chil- 
dren, who clung to their kilts of hide, and 
peeped shyly at the white-robed Druid and 
the wicker figure. Amongst the rest came a 
girl of fifteen, shy and eager, Avith wide eyes 
full of curiosity and awe. The work was 
almost finished, but the labourers rested at 
the hour appointed for their evening meal. 
The priest blessed a quegh, and from a little 
copper bowl which had floated at the top of 
it poured water on the hands of one after 
another of the labourers, who sang a low slow 
chant meanwhile, and then being freed of the 
touch of things sacred to Bel, seized on the 
provender. The girl spoke to one of them, 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 8i 

who, though of the inferior grade, had yet a 
band under him. 

‘ Will the green stuff burn, Mendar ? ’ 

‘ Will it burn ? ’ said he. ‘ Aye, it will 
burn well enough, the green and the dry 
together. If all were dry ’twould be over ere 
Bel had time to savour it.’ 

‘ It must hurt greatly to be burned,’ the 
girl said, after awhile. ‘I trod upon an 
ember in the spring of last year. It was 
worse than being cut with a knife.’ 

The man seated on the grass, with a knife 
in one hand and a hacked lump of sodden 
beef in the other, looked up at her through 
his shaggy eyebrows. 

‘ Hurt ? Without doubt. Who cares ? 
They are Mernogaels. What else are they 
made for ? ’ 

‘ Where do they come from ? ’ the girl 
asked him. 

‘ Eh ? How should I know ? They are 
bought from the Toernobants. They eat 
lizai’ds, ajul roots, and wliat not. ’Tis said 
Bel loves the smell of them. May be.’ 

‘ Do they cry out ? ’ asked the girl. 


o 


82 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


‘ Cry out ? Ay ! right merrily I Wilt 
hear them on Bel’s day, if thou’rt old 
enough.’ 

‘ I was nearly old enough at the last fes- 
tival,’ she answered eagerly. Then, surveying 
the wicker figure, ‘ There is no place for 
them to be put in at.’ 

‘ Who builds a house and forgets the 
door? Seest the rope yonder? Take thy 
Mernogael, bind wrists to ankles, tie him to 
the rope, swing him over the top — seest the 
hole in the head ? — then one hath climbed in 
readiness and waiteth with his knife. Slash ! 
Down he droppeth. You can hear the creak 
of the basket-work. And the later he goeth 
up the less space he hath to fall. And they 
all writhe together like worms in a skin when 
you go a-fishing, and they yell till the smoke 
it choketh them. A merry sight, and doeth 
the heart good. I shall have seen a score 
such sights with this that cometh next Bel’s 
day.’ 

‘ Is it always the Mernogaels who are 
burned ? ’ 

‘ There is naught else for it in these times 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


83 


when there are no wars afoot. In the brave 
days gone by I have seen five score, Lennians 
and Toernobants, strapping fellows, and never 
a cry amongst them — drop ’em as far and 
pile ’em as high as you might, till the fire 
began to lick at ’em. Then they gave us 
music to be sure. But they are staunch lads, 
and now we are at peace with ’em, worse 
luck! I make no count of these mangy 
Mernogaels.’ 

The taskmaster stood hard by in his white 
robe and green chaplet. His grave features 
creased into a smile, and he caressed his 
beard with a self-gratulatory air. 

‘ We shall have better fare than the Mer- 
nogaels, Mendar,’ he said, condescending to 
speech with his humbler fellow. The man 
rose as his chief pronounced his name, and 
stood respectfully before him. 

‘That is good hearing, master,’ he said. 
‘ I have heard naught of it until now.’ 

‘Nor I until awhile agone,’ returned the 
Druid. ‘I had it from our great father in 
Odan, Wenegog himself. There are thirty and 
one of the new faith — a right apt sacrifice.’ 


84 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


‘ Right apt,’ said the other gladly, and the 
Druid turning away, he sat down and renewed 
his meal with a satisfied countenance. 

‘ Two score and five of the Mernogaels,’ 
he said, laughing upward at the girl. ‘ And 
thirty and one others.’ He reckoned labori- 
ously upon his fingers. ‘Three score and 
sixteen. There will be something to think 
upon when thou art as old as I am.’ 

At this moment there arose a sound of 
distant singing, and the procession returning 
from the royal chase was seen winding its way 
from the forest to the plain. The noise of 
the chant swelled up and died away, and 
swelled again like the varying voice of the 
tide. 

Then spake Kalula to the children of the seagod, 

Spake and clanked his sword upon his shield ; 

Rise and meet the son of Badowran, — 

Your blood shall rust on his blade 1 

The huntsmen clashed their arms together 
as they sang, and now and again one break- 
ing into a rude improvised dance in measure 
with the song would infect his neighbours 
with his spirit, and the wild band would go 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


8S 


waltzing and roaring, with flashing eyes, and 
whirling hair and clanking weapons, and faces 
flushed with the sudden longing of battle. At 
the head of the procession rode Feltor and 
Barxelhold, she bestriding her unsaddled 
steed manlike, and bending downwards at 
times to speak with Osweng, who walked by 
her side. The wild martial merriment of 
their followers was enough removed to make 
conversation possible, but it served to cloak 
a murmured aside now and again, and to keep 
it from Feltor’s ears. 

Beside the king’s horse strode Wenegog, 
silent and impassive. Suddenly he touched 
Feltor lightly on the knee and pointed an 
extended finger to the great wicker figure. 

‘ See,’ he said quietly, ‘ they are ready.’ 

Feltor returned no answer, but the men 
in front of the procession observing the arch- 
Druid’s gesture, looked and saw the threaten- 
ing image, and turning, motioned to the rank 
behind. The martial chant died away, rank 
behind rank falling into silence. One knot 
of singers, flushed and half-maddened by the 
music, danced and yelled for a minute after 


8fl ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

the rest were still, but their comrades laid 
hands on them and brought them to quiet. 
The company walked sombrely with bent 
heads. Osweng forgot to plume himself, and 
Barxelhold rode looking downwards still, but 
away from the courtier. 

They marched thus until they had passed 
the circle by half a mile, and then a single 
hoarse voice starting the strain anew, a hun- 
dred joined in before the first line was finished, 
and when but a verse or two had been sung 
the whole mad crowd was leaping and roar- 
ing again. 

The sun was setting when they reached 
the palace. In the great roofless hall four 
huge fires were burning, heaped up on the 
earthen floor. At each of these fires was set 
up a number of heavy wooden tripods, and 
upon each pair of these rested a spit, run 
through the entire body of an animal, wild 
bull, boar, or deer. Hooped wooden vessels 
and jars cut from solid stone held mead and 
beer, and loaves of black bread made a pyra 
mid upon a stone table in the centre of the 
chamber The walls of the hall were hung 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


87 


with garlands of hawthorn, dog-roses, and 
oak branches, and on the entrance of Feltor 
and Barxelhold a band of musicians playing 
upon harps, long and short horns, and tri- 
angles, struck up a discordant air. The enter- 
ing huntsmen seized the theme, and the walls 
rang to the stirring and barbarous music. 

The king and queen with their immediate 
following passed on to the inner hall, and 
there upon a rudely fashioned table, the great 
oak beams of which were polished by cen- 
turies of use, a feast was already spread. Sal- 
mon, speared in the Dee, venison and boar 
from the woods of Surlled, dishes of boiled 
beans and honey, and clotted milk and honey, 
formed the staple of the repast, whilst Gallic 
wine and Italian oil, purchased at much cost 
from the Eoman legionaries at Deva, were 
luxuries which could only be found at the 
royal table. 

In the outer hall the keen-set huntsmen 
fell with knives and hatchets upon the fare 
provided for them, hacking away vigorously 
at beef, boar, and venison, until every man 
held his reeking ration in both hands and 


88 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


worried at it, standing about the hall, or 
reclining at half-length against the walls and 
the solid stone tables and benches. The 
women bore horns of mead and black beer 
amongst them, and the feasters drank hugely, 
with laughter and shoutings. 

Whilst the feasting was at its height the 
sky grew black, and the first rumblings of 
distant tempest made themselves heard above 
the noise of merrymaking. The feasters paid 
no heed, even when the first heavy drops 
plashed down into the roofless hall. Cressets 
of fire burned here and there, and torches 
stuck into crevices of the wall or planted in 
the earth cast red splashes of light in their 
own immediate neighbourhood, apd made the 
spaces between seem darker by contrast. The 
bards sang and played, half the roysterers 
joined in chorus or sang irrelevant ditties of 
their own, shrieks of simulated fear arose from 
one of the women as some grizzled old warrior 
haled her on to his knee and scored her 
cheek with his wiry beard, and oaths, jests, 
laughter, opposing airs, and the noise of 
sudden quarrel made a deafening hubbub. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


89 


Suddenly the thunder clove through it all, and 
the lightning flashed out blindingly. Cressets 
and torches looked blurred and dim between 
the flashes, and when the skies opened and 
tlie rain came down the women fled laughing 
and shrieking to their own shelter, and the 
men planting themselves to the leeward of 
the wall against which the tempest beat at 
its fullest force, carried on their merriment 
there as best they might. The rain, driven 
by the wind, sprayed over the wall as if a sea 
were there, and the lightning showed the 
great rebounding drops upon the floor like 
a dense host of tiny silver-clad dancers. Cres- 
sets, torches, and great roasting-fires hissed 
and blackened and died. Men made rushes 
from their partial shelter into the storm, and 
returned with drinking horns charged with 
mead and beer. Their comrades, half in rude 
good humour and half in brutality of greedi- 
ness, fought for the supply. One grey bard, 
mad with the excitement of the storm and 
the revelry that had gone before it, dashed 
into the midst of the hall and danced there, 


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ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


yelling an improvised ode to the thunder 
whereto no man listened. 

In the sheltered chamber of the king and 
queen the feast went on uninterrupted. Feltor 
and Barxelhold sat in equal state at the 
head of the table, side by side, in chairs of 
massive oak strewn with costly skins. Feltor 
was sullen and silent, but Barxelhold beamed 
at her brightest, and evinced a mischievous 
dehght at her lord’s anger. Osweng sat next 
Barxelhold, but the king’s eyes so cowed him 
that he was quite deserted of his airs and 
graces, and hardly dared even to answer her 
when she spoke to him. Seeing this, Barxel- 
hold embarrassed him with favours, serving 
him with her own fingers, drinking from his 
cup, touching his hand with hers when she 
desired to speak with him, and holding it 
there while slie spoke. More than once Feltor 
had his hand upon his knife, and Wenegog 
sitting impassive below him laid a familiar 
grasp upon his knee and addressed him. Each 
time the king relaxed his hold upon the haft, 
and without paying heed to what the arch- 
Druid might say, turned to a young warrior 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


91 


of the court whose business it was to replenish 
his cup, and who stood with it in readiness 
behind him. Feltor seized the cup and 
drained it, and then lounging with his bare 
elbow on the board and his bearded chin in 
his palm, glared at Osweng. His potations 
told at last, and the fierce gloom of his eyes 
grew filmed and purposeless. He fell back in 
his chair and lay lax with closed eyes and 
arms loosely hanging. Osweng recovered his 
courage, and Barxelhold having frozen him 
with a sudden disdain, turned a laughing face 
upon her father. A sour smile crossed the 
Druid’s face, and his lips opened for a sound- 
less laugh. 

Hints of the tempest drove in even here, 
between the curtain poles and the roof. At 
the first peal and flash Barxelhold, feigning to 
be frightened, clung to Osweng, and he once 
more gaining boldness, began again to make 
love to her. Wenegog, with both arms on the 
table, looked across at them with a half-scorn- 
ful, half-amused toleration. The feast and the 
storm went on, both one and the other grow- 
ing wilder. There was as little decorum with- 


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in the curtains which sheltered the royal ban- 
queting chamber as in the open hall beyond 
them. One reveller had thrown himself full 
length upon the bench beside the table, and 
a lady of the court sat perched upon his mid- 
riff, bending over him and playing with his 
beard, whilst he laughed sleepily back at her. 
Beside him a mere slip of a girl with a face 
half-insanely alight with wine sat on a chiefs 
shoulder, brandishing an empty wine cup and 
singing, the chieftain meanwhile drinking 
away below with great composure, and hsten- 
ing to the story of a bear hunt from his left- 
hand neighbour. Osw'eng had thrown himself 
upon the ground at Barxelhold’s feet, and now 
lay looking up at her. She touched him 
twice or thrice with her foot, and once he 
ventured to seize it. 

The thunder split the heavens overhead, 
and seemed to crash ahiong the very rafters 
of the hall, but it could but silence the din of 
revelry by overpowering it. The swish and 
pelt of the rain were heard in pauses, and the 
flash of the lightning ever and again paled 
the lamps and torches as its glare fled past 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


93 


the space between the roof and the curtain 
hangings. 

But without and within the tempest les- 
sened. Pale slow gleams of moonlight alter- 
nated with the swift glance of the storm, and 
the feasters were falling asleep, when the 
curtains were thrown suddenly apart, and 
Eoedweg strode into the hall and advanced to 
the upper end of the table. He bore in his 
arms the child Wankard, who lay asleep in 
that strong cradle, his hair and raiment drip- 
ping heavily with rain. After their chieftain 
came half-a-dozen of his followers, who, push- 
ing Heurtan the jester into the chamber before 
them, stood near the curtain in a rude irreso- 
lution as if not well knowing whether to enter 
or remain outside. 

Wenegog and Barxelhold arose, but Eoed- 
weg glanced at neither of them. Shifting his 
light burden to his left arm, he stretched out 
his hand and seized on a full horn of wine. 
He emptied it at one draught, and returned it 
resoundingly to the board. 

‘Is this hunting of babes and dwarfs fit 
work for men ? ’ he asked growlingly, as he 


94 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


passed his hand across his lips. ‘ A score of 
warriors sent forth to make prey of a child 
and a fool.’ 

‘Hast found the arch-heretic ? ’ Wenegog 
demanded. 

‘ Of a feast-day, too, of all days in the 
year,’ Eoedweg grumbled, disdaining the 
question. ‘ And that among the meats which 
is not charred or sodden hath been cleared by 
this pack.’ 

He kicked together with his foot a heap 
of the skins which lay loose about the floor 
and set down the sleeping child upon the 
couch thus formed. Wenegog moved forward 
and stooped as if he would lay hands upon 
the boy. 

‘ Nay,’ said Eoedweg, ‘ that is king’s meat. 
He is not for thy maw.’ 

‘Barest speak thus to me, dog?’ de- 
manded Wenegog. 

• Bare ? ’ laughed Eoedweg. ‘ Naught 
dare I, nor ever dared. But spite o’ that, 
who has the lad shall fight me for him, be he 
god or fiend — or Bruid.’ 

Wenegog looked dearly at him, but the 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 9S 

old man, with his feet astride across the child, 
had reached out a hand to the table and seized 
a remnant of cold venison, and now stood 
tranquilly munching it. The Druid passed 
him in hot scorn, and sweeping to the far end 
of the chamber stood over Heurtan. 

‘ Where is thy master ? Thy teacher of 
lies? Where is he?’ 

The jester returned no answer, and Wene- 
gog, gazing passionately about him, seized a 
crystal tankard and struck him heavily upon 
the head with it. Heurtan swayed somewhat 
and raised his hand to the wound. 

‘ Where is he ? ’ cried Wenegog. 

Heurtan was silent. The storm had rolled 
away. The few revellers who were still awake 
stared drunkenly at the scene, and a voice 
from the outer hall hiccoughed a stave of a 
song of war. 

‘Where is he?’ Wenegog cried again, 
with the tankard poised high in his right 
hand. 

A strange chant, jubilant and wild, rose 
outside the palace walls. Hciirtau alone, of 
all who listened, had heard the strain before. 


96 ^ ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

His face lightened with an exalted smile, and 
the hand that had pressed upon his wound 
was raised with the gesture of one who 
listens. 

The strange wild jubilant chant came 
nearer — passed the palace — died away. 

‘ I am the resurrection and the hfe : he 
that believeth in Me, though he were dead, 
yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and 
believeth in Me shall never die.’ 

‘ Who are these ? ’ the arch-Druid asked. 
His hand had fallen as he listened. 

‘ They ai e followers of the Master whom 
I follow,’ Hen r tail answered, breaking his 
silence. 

‘ Then follow thou them,’ said Wenegog. 
‘ Bind him', and take him with the rest.’ He 
nodded slowly at the jester, his white beard 
waving up and down. ‘ Shalt be rai’e and 
warm on Bel’s day. Take him away.’ 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


97 


CHAPTER VH. 

It was the afternoon of Bel’s day. Midway 
between the ring of thirteen stones, which 
represented the circle of life, and the inmost 
ring of thirty-nine stones which represented 
the circle of sacrifice by fire, a great plat- 
form of wood had been erected. This plat- 
form rose to a height of six feet from the 
ground, and at both ends and from the side 
facing towards the huge image of wickerwork 
was approached by seven steps. At the 
centre of it was placed a stone of green ser- 
pentine, curved at top, the squared sides of it 
facing due north and south. On either side 
of the stone, and at a distance of some three 
or four yards, was a raised chair spread with 
skins. On the turf between the platform and 
the inmost circle of stones was built an altar, 
on which a sacrificial fire already burned. 

It 


98 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


In the enormous grasr/ ring which lay 
between the first and second circles, thousands 
of people were gathered, and from every side 
the crowd came pouring in. Here was all 
the din and tumult of a fair. Sellers of mead 
and ale, of roast meats and bread, and of a 
beverage of thin soured beer mingled with 
honey, much prized in thirsty weather, bawled 
their wares. Druids sold bits of dried hairless 
skin traced with cabalistic signs for amulets 
against death and disaster, little wooden tab- 
lets for success in the chase, the dried eyes 
of wolves, all guaranteed three years old at 
death, to secure good fortune in love, and 
bored trifles of unpolished jet and crystal to 
ward off the aches and pains of sickness. 

At rapid receipt of custom sat a fat old 
Druid, in wolfskin kilt and chaplet of oak 
leaves (freshly bound that morning but al- 
ready flaccid and drooping in the summer 
sun), with three copper bowls before him, and 
in each bowl a bound bunch of southernwood 
tAvigs. The bowl at his left hand held water 
known to be drawn from the sacred spring of 
Weeshdaer ; the next, water from the same 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 99 

source, but doubly sanccilied by the special 
blessing of the guardian Druid of the spring ; 
and the bowl at his right a yet more efficacious 
benediction, since it was not merely drawn 
from the holy spring and blessed by its pre- 
siding priest, but had served to lave the hands 
of the arch-priest himself after high sacrifice. 

To him came all manner of people with all 
sorts of gifts, demanding all kinds of blessings. 
Here an anxious mother brought a sick child, 
and at the price of a sheepskin bought the 
cheapest of the fat Druid’s blessings, and had 
the child saved of all future risk of convul- 
sions in teething. Here a man drove a barren 
ewe to get her blessed into fecundity, and 
paid a roughly shaped ingot of copper. Here 
a girl, blushing and laughing and trying to 
hide from the spectators what she brought, 
held jealously in both hands a brace of dried 
wolf’s eyes, and to make assurance doubly 
sure, paid an ingot of silver to have them 
each twice blest with the richest water. 
There a fellow limping from an old wound 
made by a poisoned arrow two years earlier, 
and obstinately refusing to be healed. Behind 


100 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


him came two serfs bearing a cage of wicker, 
in which a great auk pecked and fluttered • 
furiously. The Druid sprinkled the man busi- 
ness-like, and with a wave of his hand indicated 
the spot in which the bird should be bestowed. 
His assistants herded a heterogeneous flock of 
sheep, goats, screaming wild geese, and loud- 
quacking wild duck, and heaped up mounds of 
dead mallard, teal, and wood-pigeon, and piles 
of skins, in readiness for transport when the 
fair which preluded the sacrifice should be 
over. 

Here and there, with an attentive circle 
about him, a bard harped and sang, and 
bursts of wild applause or shouts of laughter 
followed his story, according as he told of the 
deeds of gods and warriors, or related the 
racy adventures of Sarnaku. Here and there 
again a fool-dancer, in his ocl ire-smeared kilt 
and head-dress, with face and body lined with 
ochre and charcoal, sprang and contorted for 
a reward of meat and beer. The women held 
up their male children — who from the earliest 
age were permitted to be present at the fes- 
tival — high over the heads of the crowd, that 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


loi 


they might witness the mad antics of the 
painted fool. 

The crowd discussed the coming sacrifice, 
and such as had intimately known any of the 
Christian captives were questioned and listened 
to with interest. 

‘ There is Elkama,’ said a woman who had 
an attentive knot gathered about her. ‘ She 
is to be burned to Bel to-day. Eight glad am 
I of it, for ’ 

‘ For the men thought her likely to look 
on,’ a lad of twenty or thereabouts broke in, 
laughing. 

O o 

‘ Ay,’ said the woman. ‘ Likely enough 
to look on ! Loedfel was after her. He’ll 
hardly be in love with her to-morrow. When 
she’s gone, an honest woman may have a 
chance again.’ 

The blast of a solitary horn sounded 
hoarsely shrill over the tumult^f the crowd, 
and there were cries for silence everywhere. 
The dancers stopped in their rapidest whirl, 
the bards suspended their song in mid flight, 
the vendors of meat and ale ceased to sell, 
and the fat Druid emptied the contents of his 


102 


ONE TRAVELLEB. RETURNS 


three bowls into one, thereby destroying the 
separate virtues of each, and, having poured 
the water upon the ground, handed the bowls 
to an attendant and waddled away. Absolute 
stillness and the silence of an expectant awe 
reigned where a moment earlier all had been 
noise and motion. 

Then arose the pomp of a barbarous music 
of horns, triangles, and voices, and the crowd, 
first pressing towards the sound, swayed apart 
as it advanced and made a broad lane for the 
musicians. These were robed in white and 
wore cinctures of copper. Behind them came 
others similarly attired, sprinkling water, 
having in the one hand a bowl and in the 
other a sprig of southernwood. Then followed 
a band sprinkling rye and barley, and after 
these at a measured interval came Feltor and 
Barxelhold, at the head of a picked band of 
warriors led by Eoedweg. 

Next, pacing one by one, came the priests 
of the Seven Terrors : the priest of the death 
by Flame, the priest of the death by the Knife, 
the priest of the death by Poison, the priest 
of the death by Torture, the priest of the 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS toj 

death by the Wave, the priest of the death by 
Hunger, and the priest of the deatli by Thirst. 
They wore chaplets of the oak, which had 
been steeped in blood and seared in fire ; and 
as they passed, calm and slow, the people 
shrank and bowed before them. At the heels 
of the last Terror came the captives, closely 
guarded, pinioned at the wrists, and rolling 
wild eyes hither and thither on the crowd and 
upon each other. Some among them walked 
erect with calm faces, and some even sang, 
though the guards struck such of the singers 
as were within their reach upon the lips to 
silence them. 

After the captives followed the priestly 
heralds of the Seven Joys. Their brows were 
wreathed with oak, they were robed in white, 
and girt at the waist by a broad scarlet band. 
They walked in single file : the herald of the 
joy of the Chase, the herald of the joy of 
War, the herald of the joy of Love, the 
herald of the joy of the Feast, the herald of 
the joy of Fertility, the herald of the joy of 
Duty to the king, and the herald of the joy 
of Obedience to the gods. 


104 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


Next came a body of the higher order of 
Druids, their rank indicatAd by the breadth of 
the scarlet cincture worn by each ; and be- 
hind them Wenegog alone, draped in com- 
plete scarlet, walking with bent head, and 
bearing in his right hand the sacrificial knife. 

The crowd lingered long before it dared 
to close in upon the wake of that awful 
figure. 

The musicians who headed the procession 
took their places at the ends of the platform, 
and the sprinklers of water and rye and barley 
drew up beside them. Feltor and Barxelhold 
mounted the platform and took in silence the 
seats prepared for them. Eoedweg and his 
band also ascended, and stood grouped be- 
hind the king and queen. The priests of the 
Seven Terrors passed in front, and, halting, 
formed a hne at the left side. The captives 
were driven in a herd between the sacrificial 
fire and the figure of wickerwork, and the 
heralds of the Seven Joys ranged themselves 
on the right. The Druids in white and scarlet 
took their stand to right and left of the king 
and queen, and Wenegog mounted the centre 


ONE TEAVELLER RETURNS 


105 


steps and stood by the stone of sacrifice, knife 
in hand. 

There was silence for a space, and then a 
blast, long and loud, was blown upon a horn. 
Then another and another, until seven blasts 
were blown. The crowd began to surge to 
and fro with vague suppressed murmurs, and 
here and there a sharper cry of eagerness or 
of pain. In a while it became evident that 
seven lanes were opened in the dense crowd, 
partly by the volition of the people and in 
part by the efibrts of Druids and soldiers. 

Then again there was silence for a space, 
and those upon the platform could see that 
the edges of each lane were agitated as though 
blown upon by opposing winds. The people 
knelt and bowed as if in extremest awe, and 
the lanes closed slowly until from each there 
emerged upon the circle a maiden nude from 
head to foot, bearing in her hand an unlighted 
torch. These were the firstborn daughters of 
seven great chieftains, and they came in the 
name of the seven daughters of There : Lernoe, 
the goddess of Atonement; Hemdamu, the 
goddess of Prayer ; Wor, the goddess of Fe- 


io6 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

cundity ; Tenkomba, tne goddess of Sincerity ; 
Aieshtar, the goddess of the Fruits of the 
Earth ; Soinb, the goddess of the Odour of 
Sacrifice ; and Nelbaerkhu, the goddess of 
Warmth. In contrast with the swarthy and 
sunburned limbs and faces of the rougher 
sort, the bodies of these more delicately-bred 
women shone ivory white. Some of them 
walked as if they were conscious of the 
sacrifice of modesty to which they were or- 
dained, but the others seemed proud of it, 
for it was only to the fairest and noblest and 
most innocent that the awful task upon which 
they were engaged was given. That task was 
to ignite the fire within the wicker figure 
when it should be filled with its appointed 
human victims. 

They ranged themselves between the group 
of captives and the altar, each one laying in 
the sacrificial fire the torch she carried, and 
as the flames caught the torches an aged 
Druid set upon the curved serpentine block, 
behind which Wenegog stood knife in hand, 
an adder, bound upon a stout withe. With 
a slow and deliberate stroke of the knife the 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


107 


arch-priest slit the grey belly of the reptile, 
and the aged Druid descending the steps threw 
it upon the sacrificial fire. Then another, 
grave and hoary, laid upon the block a lizard, 
also bound upon a withe, and the knife having 
opened the creature from throat to tail, it 
also was thrown upon the fire. Next a wood- 
pigeon was sacrificed, next a hare, next a 
lamb, and then a doe. 

Then there was a renewed sway and mur- 
mur in the assembly as the gathered worship- 
pers anticipated a sacrifice more awful. A 
wild and continued wail of terror and appeal 
burst from the ranks of the captives as their 
guards fell upon them, and bound them wrist 
to ankle. The vast crowd stood silent with 
craned necks and staring eyes. One of the 
Mernogaels, more stalwart than his comrades, 
found courage in the abyss of his despair and 
fought madly, but the rest submitted without 
a struggle. 

From the midst of the captive group one 
man was driven unpinioned towards the plat- 
form. It was Heurtan the jester. At the 
foot of the steps he paused and looked about 


ic8 ) ONE TEA VELLER RETURNS 

him, but there was no hope of succour, and 
in the looks of the thousands who regarded 
him, no single glance of pity. His guards 
scourged him forward, and he mounted. The 
dreadful silence was broken by a murmured 
incantation from Wenegog. The Druids about 
him repeated it. The sound swelled right and 
left among the crowd — a deep hoarse mut- 
tering ; 

Lord of the Nethergloom, 

Scourger of fiends and men, 

This to appease thee. 

Sweet is the blood-savour, 

Sweet to thy nostrils the burning, 

Master of Evils 

A man with a gleaming knife between his 
teeth climbed the figure of wickerwork, and 
having reached the top sat down there staring 
about him, and tried the edge of the blade 
upon his thumb. Below him the guards 
seized upon the victims and threw them 
heaped one upon another at the foot of one 
of the poles where the rope of bark-fibre 
drooped ready. A score of hands were at 
either end of the rope, and a Druid stood near 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


109 


the writhing heap of victims with a double 
handful of thongs of leather. 

The four who had driven Heurtan to the 
sacrificial stone seized him one by each hand 
and one by each foot, and casting him back 
downwards on its concave surface knelt and 
strained him there. The seven maidens raised 
their lighted torches from the fire of sacrifice, 
and passing between the stones of the inmost 
circle placed themselves at equal distances 
about the figure of Bel. 

The arch-Druid raised the dripping knife. 
The muttered prayer to the god of Terror 
had died away and a voice sprang out of the 
stillness. 

‘Hold!’ 

Wenegog looked down and saw David 
standing in the space between the platform 
and the fire. 

‘ The hour is propitious,’ he said, lowering 
the knife slowly. ‘Bel has chosen his own 
sacrifice. Bring him hither.’ 

A score of men started down the broad 
stairs and paused stock still midway. For at 
the same instant they were all aware of a 


no 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


woman robed in a mantle of skin who stood 
beside the Saint, and to the eyes of every one 
who looked upon her she bore the likeness of 
Vreda who had been queen among them. 

The knife fell from Wenegog’s hand and 
quivered in the beam at his feet. The woman 
mounted the platform and stood before him. 
He glared upon her with his head thrown 
backward, and his white beard jutting out 
towards her. Her face was no longer the face 
of Vreda, but it bore a serenity beyond all 
earthly calm, and it was beautiful past wor- 
ship. 

At the first giimpse of her Barxelhold rose 
with a cry and ran towards Feltor, but he 
also arose and waved her back with a com- 
manding horror which arrested her. And the 
two, ghastly pale and trembling, looked upon 
the new comer, and the face they saw was no 
more the face of Vreda. 

The woman turned and moved a hand and 
spoke. Her voice was sweet and low, but it 
reached every ear in the crowd. 

‘ I forbid this sacrifice.’ 

She turned again upon Wenegog, and he 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


III 


recoiled from the altar. The guards released 
Heurtan, and he, arising in terror and bewil- 
derment from the stone, beheld her face and 
falling upon his knees kissed her raiment. 

‘Forbid?’ gasped Wenegog. His eyes 
started and his clawlike nails clutched at his 
bare scalp between the oak-leaves of his 
crown. ‘ Who forbids ? ’ 

‘ I,’ she answered ; ‘ God’s messenger.* 

The Druid cowered and shook. Her glance 
dwelt upon him with a calm of pity and 
knowledge dreadful to endure. He cast both 
hands high and wide into the air and cried 
aloud : ‘ Depart ! To-day Bel goes hungry I ’ 


113 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


CHAPTEE Vm. 

A WARM wind full fed with woodland odours 
rustled the grasses of wide pasture lands, and 
made a lazy stir in the high piled clouds 
which rose in irregular layers of dove-colour 
and ghstering white above the distant sea. 
The tender music of the wind mingled with 
the notes of innumerable birds and with the 
careless babble of a brook hurrying to the 
river, and pausing here and there to swirl and 
murmur in brown pools, beloved of idle trout. 
The jester, with his bare feet paddhng in the 
brook, and his shoulders propped against a 
willow tree, stared straight before him in a 
day-dream, and by his side gambolled the child 
Wankard, rolling over a heap of fresh-gathered 
wild flowers, or tossing the blossoms in the 
air, and allowing them to fall about his face 
until they veiled him from tJie siinlight. High 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 113 

in the summer blue a lark trilled clear and 
shrill. 

‘ Heurtan,’ said the child suddenly, ‘ I am 
hungry.’ 

The jester awoke from his fancies, and 
stretching out his hand for a wallet which 
lay beside him, opened it and spread its 
contents on the grass — a deer’s dried tongue, 
a handful of roots, and a hunch of black 
bread. 

‘ Poor fare for a prince,’ said Heurtan, ‘ but 
the best that can be found.’ 

The child’s healthy appetite made a ban- 
quet of the simple meal, and the jester 
looked on with an air of affectionate approval. 

‘ Am I a prince, Heurtan ? ’ Wankard 
asked, looking up at his protector. 

‘ Ay art thou ! ’ Heurtan answered. ‘ Art 
the only child of the queen of the Coerleans — 
the greatest nation in the land, and the mas- 
ters of everybody ere the Eomans came. But 
there is no wolf so valiant but he shall find 
another to make wolves’ meat of him.’ 

‘ My mother was the queen,’ said the child 
half inquiring. 


I 


II4 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

‘ Ay, and might have been queen in Eean- 
hola. She sits there now, lad, with all the 
great kings and queens and warriors of time 
past. Thou’lt go thither one of these days 
and see her.’ 

‘ Wilt be there too, Heurtan ? ’ asked the 
child. 

‘ Nay,’ said Heurtan. ‘ Eeanhola hath no 
place for the hke of me. ’Tis for the kings 
and governors, and for the strong in fight and 
wise in council. Happily there is a place for 
the poor and sorrowful, though the word of it 
came but lately.’ 

A coarse and jovial voice sounded some 
two or three hundred yards up-stream ; 

The bear’s claw long and keen, 

The otter’s tooth keen and white, 

The wolf’s tooth yellow and strong 
And the king’s hound hath no fear. 

Then, at the end of the verse came a wild 
and sustained ‘ Ohoo 1 ohoo 1 ’ with a chorus 
of barking dogs. 

‘ Old Seri ! ’ cried the child, springing mer- 
rily to his feet. 

The jester caught him by the hand, and 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


IIS 


dragging him to the shelter of a bush, laid 
him down behind it, and looked about him as 
if for a way of escape. 

‘The worm that runs from the crow 
might save himself trouble if he had but the 
headpiece to think of it/ he said, resigning 
himself. ‘He is fleeter of foot than I am, and 
he hath his dogs with him. And why should 
Seri do me a mischief? ’ 

He stood up, motioning to the child, who 
followed his example ; and then holding W an- 
kard’s hand in his own, advanced to meet the 
singer, who, rounding a clump of willows at a 
little distance, stopped short in a second wild 
halloa at beholding him. He was old and 
lean, and half naked, and was burned and 
tanned everywhere to a reddish-brown. His 
bald head was uncovered, and shone like 
polished copper in the sunlight. 

‘ What ? Thee ? ’ shouted the new comer. 
‘ I never dreamed to see thee again, unless it 
had been that some chance wind had blown a 
cinder of thee into mine eyes. How didst 
like being taken for Bel’s meat? Wast nigh 


Il6 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

to being roasted when I saw thee last, and 
Bel taketh his roast overdone.’ 

Heurtan advanced reassured. 

‘ Hast lost thine ass’s ears ? ’ asked Seri, 
grinning all over his weather-beaten counte- 
nance. ‘ ’Tis a pity. Thou wast never so fit 
to wear them. A freeborn Coerlean to go a- 
running after new-fangled gods, and to get 
roasted for his pains ! Why, lad, if Odan, 
and There, and Sanfer be not good enough for 
thee, there are new gods by the score at Deva, 
set out in stone, and gold, and silver — gods of 
value, lad. Art in favour again ? ’ he asked 
suddenly, pulling Heurtan aside and looking 
askance at Wankard. 

‘ Nay,’ said the jester. ‘ The child loves 
me, and will be near me when he can.’ 

‘ He hath little the look of a king’s son,’ 
Seri muttered in his beard. ‘He would go 
otherwise if the queen were alive I ’ 

‘ Ay ! ’ Heurtan assented sadly. 

‘ There be some mad folk who say she is 
back again,’ said Seri. ‘ I was of that mind 
myself for a flash when she came between 
Wenegog’s knife and thee. But I have set 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


117 


eyes on her since, and she is no more like to 
the queen than I am. But I’ll tell thee who 
she is, lad, to my mind.’ His voice sank, and 
he looked about him with a furtive air. ‘ ’Tis 
Ash tali come back again.’ 

‘ Ashtali ? ’ said the jester. 

‘ And none other,’ Seri answered. ' She 
hath a face, lad — there is no way of saying it. 
’Tis as mild as moonlight, and ye go cold with 
the sight of it. And for grace and fairness — 
why, I was like to break out a-weeping like a 
girl when ye smite her for some slut’s trick or 
another. And go where she wiU she taketh 
light with her like the sun, and the folks’ 
hearts are warm with her. There is naught 
else talked of. Some say it is the queen again, 
and some that she came across the seas from 
Gaul or where not ; but your southerns are 
always swart and black hke these Romans, 
and she hath a skin like milk. But most are 
of my mind, and say it is Ashtali, the Bringer 
of Peace, herself.’ 

‘ ’Twould be the plainest way to ask her,’ 
said Heurtan. 

‘Would it ? ’ Seri demanded with a gri- 


u8 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

mace. ‘ Hadst better try it I Thou hadst the 
chance but a day or two agone. I tell thee 
she strikes a fear into a man. Why, but yes- 
terday, Meoln and Theg had their knives out 
one at another. Theg had kicked Meoln’s 
hound, and they have been running after the 
same wench for a year past, and so were ripe 
for quarrel. And she did but walk between 
them, and sayeth she : “ What ! can twin 
brethren thirst each for the other’s blood ? ” 
And they dropped their knives and stood 
amazed at each other.’ 

‘ How knew she that they were twin breth- 
ren ? ’ Heurtan asked. 

‘ It stands to reason she should know,’ Seri 
answered. ‘ She knows what goeth on inside 
of a man, and if he thinks a thing she will 
answer to him.’ 

‘ I know what 1 saw,’ said Huertan. ‘ There 
lay I, held hand and foot, with that bloody 
knife held over me, and just when it should 
have ripped into me it dropped beside me, 
and I was on my feet again. And the first 
thing I saw and the only thing I saw was the 
face of Queen Vreda, and that I know as well 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 119 

as I know thine, and better. Yet, when I 
found daring to look again, it was not the face 
of the queen or like it.’ 

‘ Naught hke it,’ Seri affirmed. ‘ It is 
Ashtali ; who else should stop the sacrifice to 
Bel? She and Bel were ever at war. ’Tis 
said Wenegog looks black as the nethergloom 
when they pass, and that’s no wonder, for Bel 
goeth hungry and Wenegog will have to find 
him reason for it.’ 

‘ Will she stay, thinkest thou ? ’ demanded 
Heurtan anxiously. 

‘May well wish she should,’ said Seri. 
‘ Folk are weary of these slayings and burn- 
ings, and since Barxelhold hath been queen 
there hath been naught else. No man hath 
quarrel with a feast to Bel when his time 
comes, and the lesser things that are appointed 
serve to keep folk merry when they roast none 
but Mernogaels. But when it comes to the 
torture of good Coerleans half a score times in 
a moon, it passeth patience, and no man can 
say when his turn may come. Looking on is 
well enough, but I have no mind for a sht 
nose nor a tongue cut out.’ 


120 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


The old man looked round furtively, in 
sudden fear lest these treasonable murmurs 
should have been overheard by the child, but 
Wankard was chasing a butterfly a score of 
yards away, and he heaved a sigh of relief. 

‘ It is not safe to speak of these things,’ 
said Heurtan, understanding him, ‘ The child 
loves both thee and me, but a word of his 
might lose our hves.’ 

Seri nodded, and whisthng to his dogs, who 
had strayed up and down the bank of the 
stream, brought them all to heel and strode 
away without further speech. Wankard ran 
back to the dwarf, and circling one of his legs 
with both arms leaned his head against his 
companion lovingly. Heurtan smoothed the 
lad’s tangled curls and stooped to kiss him. 

The sun had declined, and the silent sha- 
dows had flowed over the landscape, though 
the sky was still suffused with a softly brilliant 
light. A nightingale in a copse beyond the 
stream sounded the first notes of his nightly 
song timidly, as if not yet assured that his 
time was come. 

‘ Who is Ashtali ? ’ asked the child, sud- 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


I2I 


denly, looking upward with grave brown 
eyes. 

‘ What knowest thou of Ashtali ? ’ asked 
Heurtan, smiling on him. 

‘ Seri said Ashtali had come back again,’ 
the child answered. ‘ Who is she ? ’ 

‘ Sit down,’ said Heurtan ; ‘ I will tell thee 
aU I can. Look up yonder. She dwelleth 
there and they call her the goddess of the 
Blue of the Skies, and the Bringer of Peace 
to Men. She is granddaughter to Odan and 
There, but she wed a young warrior and they 
had one pretty lad like thee. And Senak, 
who is god of the Boiling Springs, hated the 
warrior because he would fain have wed 
Ashtali himself ; but he was foul to look at 
and of an evil heart. And Senak made him- 
self into an adder, and stung the child that he 
died. Sit quiet. Hearest thou the bird yonder? 
The first that ever was that sang that song, 
flew out of the child’s grave, and all that fol- 
lowed learned it of him. And Ashtali hath 
sought the child up and down, for it is known 
that he still lives among the birds, but they 
all speak the same speech and sing the same 


133 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


song, and she hath never found him. So 
Ashtali goeth sad of heart herself, but the 
man is blest that meets her, for she carrieth 
peace allwheres, and trouble cannot live in the 
same land with her. . . . Why, what a fool 
am I to fill the child’s head with these fables 
of the old faith when I should be teaching him 
the true things I have learned I ’ 

There was silence for a time, the child 
dreaming over the story, and Heurtan fiUed 
with his own fancies. The shadows deepened 
everywhere, and the voice of the soul of Ash- 
tali’s lost child wailed and throbbed from the 
distant copse. A voice spoke in a tone of 
ineffable softness : 

‘ Wankard ! ’ 

The jester rolling round upon his hands 
and knees saw before him a dim figure clad in 
white. The figure knelt with outstretched 
arms, and the child, bounding towards that 
proffered embrace, fell into it with tears and 
sobs. 

‘ Mother ! ’ he cried in an ecstasy of joy. 
‘ Mother I mother ! ’ 

Heurtan staring through the dusk seemed 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


133 


to see the eyes of Vreda full upon him, and 
dropped upon his face. He lay there but for 
a moment, and then Wankard cried out as if 
in fear. 

‘ No. Art not my mother ! ' 

At this voice of childish despair, Heurtan 
looked up again and saw, not Vreda, but a 
woman of great stateliness and beauty, who 
smiled upon him with a soft radiance and 
gentleness, the like of which he had never 
seen before. The glance rested upon him for 
a mere instant, but it banished all fear and 
discomfort from his heart. 

‘ Thou wilt love me, Wankard, wilt thou 
not ? ’ she said. 

The child for sole answer threw his arms 
about her neck and kissed her. 

When she spoke there was something in 
her voice which thrilled Heurtan with a 
baffling sense of the nearness of an escaped 
memory. She held the child close to her 
bosom, and kissed him often with great ten- 
derness, and Wankard, with both arms about 
her neck, kissed her back agait) eagerly and 
wildly. It seemed tc the jester as if the 


124 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


child were striving after arrears of love. 
There were tears in his own eyes as he 
looked on. 

He had lost his first fear, but there was 
still a sense of awe about him which forbade 
him to ask the questions which filled his 
mind. Who was she — this strange new comer 
who moulded the hearts of men like wax? 
Ashtah ? . David derided all Druidic lore, and 
had no more regard for the lovely legends of 
the bards than for the hideous imaginings of 
the priests. Yet might it not be that the 
creed of David and the sweet fancies of the 
singers were ahke true ? 

Whilst these thoughts filled his mind 
Vreda spoke to him. 

‘ Trouble not thyself as yet for these 
things, Heurtan. The child must crawl ere 
it can walk, yet it will walk in good time.’ 

As Wankard clung about Vreda’s neck, 
his right arm and wrist pressed close to her, 
but the hand hung lax and powerless. She 
drew it away and fondled it. There was a 
ridge upon the wrist wJiere the cords of the 
hand had been severed. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


125 


‘ That was the handiwork of Hanun,’ said 
Vreda. 

‘ Henrtan says I shall be king one day for 
all that,’ said Wankard. ‘ I shall learn to 
fight left-handed, and then they will take me 
for king, even though I cannot carry a sword 
in my right hand. And when I am king I 
shall make Eoedweg, or Elangor, or somebody 
kill Hamm for me.’ 

‘ Hanun,’ said Vreda, ‘ did but obey the 
orders of Wenegog. The servant obeys the 
will of his master.’ 

‘ Ah ! ’ thought Heurtan to himself. ‘And 
if the child comes to be king he shall repay 
the pair of them.’ 

‘Teach the child no ill lesson, Heurtan,’ 
said Vreda. ‘ Love thine enemy, and do good 
to them that despitefuUy use thee.’ 

The jester’s thought had burned like a hot 
coal within him, but the gentle voice fell upon 
his heart like a cooling dew. He had heard 
the saying from David, and had thought it 
hard. Now it came with a tender certainty 
as if it were the one thing fair and good. 

‘Thou art bound for the gathering to- 


126 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


night, Heurtan,’ said Vreda. ‘ Shall we go 
together ? ’ 

She arose, still holding the child’s hand, 
and led the way. Heurtan followed at a little 
distance. The child prattled in his pretty 
treble, and Vreda stooped fondly over him, 
listening. He had altogether grown out of 
his fear of her, and chattered gaily in pure 
confidence of love and understanding, Walk- 
ing thus they came in a little while upon the 
skirts of a wood, and Vreda, with an assured 
step, led into a path where the close cluster- 
ing trees and overhanging boughs made the 
air as dark as at a summer midnight. Heur- 
tan following could still faintly discern the 
white glimmer of her dress, and the child’s 
happy voice babbled along as merrily as if he 
had been walking through sunshine. After a 
little while they came upon a clearing in 
which stood two huts of mud and wattle. 
The stream, lost for awhile, appeared here 
once more, rippling in a series of tiny cas- 
cades, and making a sleepy music as it ran. 
Half-a-dozen people were clustered together 
near one of the huts, two of them kneeling. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


127 


and as Vreda emerged upon the clearing, and 
drew near the group, a voice arose : 

* It is Ashtali ! ’ 

One ran forwai’d and fell at Vreda’s feel 
with inarticulate cries, clutching at her robe 
and weeping wildly. 

‘ The child is there,’ said Vreda. ‘ Bring 
me a brand that I may see her.’ 

Another ran to a slumbering fire between 
the huts, and drawing a brand from it, waved 
it up and down until it broke into flame. 
Then returning she held the torch near the 
recumbent figure of a girl of fifteen, whose 
thin pallor bespoke severe and recent illness. 
The light showed the kneeling figure at 
Vreda’s feet, a grey old woman with stream- 
ing hair, who looked up with clasped hand 
and weeping eyes, brokenly calling down all 
the benedictions of the gods. The girl 
reached up a feeble hand and smiled. Vreda 
took the extended hand. 

‘ Yesterday she was dying,’ cried the old 
woman. ‘ Lanor himself could do naught for 
her. To-day she could stand and walk. And 
thou hast done it, thou only.’ 


128 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


‘ I knew the herb,' said Vreda, ‘ and it 
groweth within a score of paces.’ She stooped 
to lay a hand upon the girl’s forehead, and 
then taking Wankard’s hand, beckoned to 
Heurtan and moved away. The few who 
were about her withdrew themselves to clear 
her path and stood aside in a reverential awe. 
Wankard went silently for a time, but when 
they had passed the clearing and had once 
more plunged into the wood he broke out 
with a sudden question : 

‘ Art thou Ashtali ? They call thee 
Ashtali ! ' 

Heurtan drew in his breath and trod 
warily that he might catch her answer. 

‘ Nay, dear one. There is no Ashtali. 
’Tis but a pretty fable.’ 

‘But Heurtan told me of her,’ said the 
child. 

‘He spake to please thee,’ Vreda answered. 
‘ There is no Ashtali.’ 

‘ Then,’ said Wankard, not to be beaten 
back from inquiry, and feeling not the dread 
with which she inspired others, ‘if thou art not 
Ashtali, who art thou? Tell me thy name.’ 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


129 


Heurtan trod yet more warily to listen, 
and Vreda was silent in perplexity. Of their 
own will people had called her Ashtali, and 
none until now had asked her name. But as 
she walked in silence and in darkness, she 
was aware of a sudden warmth and sweetness 
in her own mind, and a voice seemed to speak 
to her : 

‘ Why not mine ? For thou and I are as 
one ! ’ 

And she knew this inward voice with 
great certainty, and before the child could 
speak again she answered him : ‘ Thou mayst 
call me Kalyris.’ 

The moon had risen, and its light was 
filtered softly through the leaves. The path 
was hidden by a faint mist, and wreaths of 
vapour curled and rolled in every vista of the 
wood. The mist took all tones of pearl and 
opal, and the trees and foliage were saturated 
with a bluish haze. All the birds were silent 
except that one nightingale who stiU sang in 
the now distant copse, the clear wild wail of 
his passion and longing searching the calm 
night in vain. 

S 


130 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

As Vreda and the child walked on hand in 
hand, Henrtan following, the sound of a low 
chant touched their ears and died. A little 
later, one deep and solemn voice trembled 
half audibly upon the silence. As they drew 
nearer the voice took plainer meaning. It 
was the voice of David raised in solemn and 
pathetic exhortation. 

The remnan^of his disciples knelt or sat 
before him in an open hollow of the wood in 
the sheen of the mist and moonlight. Vreda 
arrested Heurtan’s steps by a gesture, and 
Wankard stood in silence at her side. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


I3r 


CHAPTER IX. 

In the early evening of that same day the 
regal table was spread in the great ante- 
chamber. Osweng, Roman gallant from head 
to foot, fidgeted hither and thither alone, 
often and anxiously regarding the hangings of 
the queen’s chamber. A brown hand thrust 
the curtains aside, and one of Barxelhold’s 
women emerged from the inner room. She 
glanced at Osweng with a momentary sly 
smile, and then crushing her lips into a sud- 
den primness, bent her head and stood apart 
as Barxelhold stepped radiantly into the hall. 
Osweng bowed low — the maid’s features es- 
caped from control now that the queen had 
passed her — and Barxelhold, with her lithe 
and luxuriant figure drawn to its height, stood 
dazzling in a robe of transparent silk gauze, 
clotted with beads of gold. She was alight 


132 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

with pure 'eminine complacency, for no 
woman of Ooerlea had ever before her been 
so gorgeously raimented. The fabric was 
beyond her dreams, and even a great lady of 
Rome might have envied its possessor. The 
cunningest of Syrian workmen had spent half 
a lifetime upon it, and Osweng had treacher- 
ously sold a hundred freemen of his nation 
to pay the price demanded of him. 

Barxelhold posed like a statue of conscious 
triumph, and he transparent robe with its 
thick-clustering embroideries draped her form 
in a foam of white and pearly grey and gold, 
which every liere and there dispersed and re- 
vealed the rosy graces it made pretence to 
hide. 

The tiring-woman disappeared, and as the 
curtain rustled behind her Osweng lifted his 
glance to the queen’s face. His eye flashed 
and his face reddened. 

‘ Hast deigned to wear it ! ’ he cried in a 
suppressed but eager voice, and stepped for- 
ward with outstretched hands. 

‘ Feltor ! ’ said the queen, with eyebrows 
raised in tranquil idleness. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


133 


Osweng, checked in the attitude of advance, 
turned his eyes and saw the king jealously 
scowling from him to Barxelhold, and back 
again, with a hand upon the haft of his knife. 
The courtier’s posture slid subtly into one of 
obeisance to Feltor, but the king, with no re- 
sponse to the salute, cast himself sullenly into 
his seat at the head of the table, and eyed his 
rival with a wrathful disdain. 

Barxelhold seated herself beside him, and 
toying indiflerently with his hair with one 
hand, waved Osweng to a seat with the other. 
Feltor half rose, but sank back again, as 
Wenegog entered the chamber from the outer 
hall. The Druid’s face was heavy with stormy 
thought, the rims of his eyes were red with 
the watching of three sleepless niglits, and his 
wrinkled temples clung close to the bone. 
He was worn be5mnd belief, but his com- 
manding figure moved with its accustomed 
majesty. 

The four sat down to their meal, and made 
but a poor pretence of eating. The servants 
who waited upon them were infected by the 
prevailing gloom, and did their office trem- 


134 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


blingly. Suddenly Feltor flung down bis 
knife, and the weapon clattering from the 
metal trencher before him went spinning half- 
way doAvn the table. He turned onWenegog 
with a look of menace and hate. 

‘ Where is Wankard ? ’ he asked. 

‘ How should I know ? ’ demanded Wene- 
gog in answer, facing the king’s wild gaze. 

‘ By Odan’s beard,’ cried Feltor, smiting 
the table with his clenched hand, and thrust- 
ing his face near to the Druid’s, ‘ if aught of 
harm befall him, I will have thee limbed.’ 

Wenegog lifted his shaggy eyebrows with 
an insolent scorn, and holding a small piece 
of meat between the finger and thumb of the 
left hand, felt for it with his knife, severed it, 
raised it to his lips, and then tranquilly push- 
ing away his trencher, folded his arms upon 
the table, and chewing at the morsel with 
his white beard wagging up and down, 
looked into the king’s eyes with an enraging 
quietude. 

‘ Wilt speak ? ’ stormed Feltor, ‘ or shall I 
force thee to speech ? ’ 

‘Force?’ said Wenegog. ‘Art moon- 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 135 

struck?' He drew back his trencher and 
went on eating, still staring fixedly at the 
king. ‘ Mayhap Sanfer hath cast spells upon 
thee? Hanun hath potions.’ 

‘ I know thy potions,’ Feltor answered, 
with a sidelong look at the chamber which 
had been Vreda’s. ‘And ’twas Hanun 
maimed the child. I tell thee — priest as 
thou art — if further harm befall the child at 
thy hands, I will give thine eyes to the crows 
and thy heart to the dogs.’ 

The Druid rose slowly until he towered 
above the king. His eyes shot sheer light- 
nings, and his lean fingers twitched and 
trembled as he held out a denouncing hand. 

‘ And to this hath it come ! ’ he stammered 
in the extremity of his wrath. ‘ The gods go 
shamefaced, and their servant is threatened 
in the house wherein he should be most re- 
garded. Have a care, Feltor, lest I lay a 
curse upon thee. They who made thee can 
unmake thee ! ’ 

‘ Made me ? ’ cried Feltor, rising madly to 
confront him. ‘ ’Twas this that made me.’ 
He laid his hand upon the hilt of a great 


136 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

sword whicli stood beside his chair. ‘ And 
by all the kings in Eeanhola it shall hold me 
where I stand in spite ’ 

He stopped abruptly in the full passion of 
his speech. His eyes, rolling here and there, 
had fallen upon Barxelhold, who in complete 
unconcern of the quarrel had slipped her 
hand underneath the table to meet Osweng’s. 
The two, sitting thus hand in hand and smiling 
on each other, glanced upwards with a guilty 
start at the sudden cessation of Feltor’s voice. 

The king looked from one to the other 
with a dark and dreadful face, and they 
waited in expectation of some tempestuous 
outbreak. Feltor said nothing, but Osweng 
who had half arisen drooped back into his 
seat, and Baixelhold’s bold ^'r<;s drooped be- 
fore her husband’s gaze. cileiice had 

grown awful to them both wbep J^ltor strode 
from the table. He turned .*anging 

curtain and bent a final glance op^)^ his wife. 
She had not courage to meet it, for his silent 
wrath cowed her more than any storm of 
indignation could have done, and Feltor, 
dropping the curtain, disappeared. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 137 

He passed through the great hall with 
disordered gestures and savage mutterings. 
Eoedweg, who had been in waiting, had heard 
his voice raised in anger but a little while 
before, and not knowing what this abrupt 
departure from the table might portend, 
watched him to the exit from the hall, and 
then followed in his steps. 

Feltor raised his right hand again and 
again, stabbing down with it. But to slay 
either Barxelhold or Osweng too swiftly were 
to lose the best of vengeance. No mere mor- 
sel of revenge, however sweet, could satisfy 
the infinite hunger which consumed him. To 
see them linger in torment for years on years, 
to slake the heat of his heart on tears com- 
pelled by tortures as yet unimagined — to slay 
them momently with hideous cunnings of 
atrocity, and to have them yet to slay — his 
soul ached for these things. 

He passed the plain and dashed into the 
gloom of the forest. The desert loneliness, 
the dusk and silence, wrought a slow and 
halting change in him. His rage flashed often 
still, but his mood fell downward towards a 


138 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

deep dejection. Barxelhold was weary of 
liim, and he had no power to keep her. 

The remembrance of Vreda struck him 
like an arrow from some unsuspected ambush 
of the soul. Vreda — a goddess among women! 
In the pang of this swift recall Barxelhold 
with her heartless graces showed hke a mere 
drab beside the serene soft splendour of the 
beauties of the murdered queen. He could 
remember no woman who compared with 
Vreda in beauty, and could imagine none who 
might have ranked with her in goodness. 
And he had consented to her murder for the 
sake of this faithless and treacherous thing of 
pink and white, who had not truth enough to 
wish to hide her falseness. 

He walked on, following the forest paths 
mechanically, and the gloom of his heart 
deepened at every footstep. He had wan- 
dered for hours when he paused and awoke 
from his bitter fancies at the hearing of a 
sound strange to the forest solitudes, and 
strange to his own ears. It was sustained 
and distant. It fell at times to a deep and 
solemn repose of sound, and rose at times to 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


139 


heights of triumph. The king shook with a 
superstitious terror ; but in a while the music 
mastered him, and he began to feel that there 
was nothing harmful in it. He moved to- 
wards the sound with a half-unwilling foot- 
step, and by-and-by in his own pauses could 
distinguish the words of the song. They were 
strange beyond strangeness to his ears and 
heart. But when the chant had died away, 
and he moved, eager and curious by now, 
towards the meeting-place of the forest wor- 
shippers, words still more amazing reached 
him. One voice arose tremulous with ear- 
nestness. 

‘ Have mercy upon our enemies, 0 God ! ’ 

A clamour of desire shook on the air. 

‘ Be it so, 0 Lord ! ’ 

Another voice took up the petition. 

‘ Have mercy upon Wenegog, and remem- 
ber not his cruelties against him.’ 

Again the clamour of desire arose. 

‘ Be it so, 0 Lord ! ’ 

Then arose a voice that thrilled him to the 
soul, a voice more soft than the cooing of the 
wood-pigeon, tenderer than a mother’s who 


140 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


lavishes her love upon her first-born, and 
fuller of pleading than if it begged for life. 

‘ Have mercy on the king and lead him to 
the light, and blot out his iniquities.’ 

It was the very voice of Vreda, and it 
was no more astounding that the dead voice 
should sound in his ears again than that any 
amongst this wretched band should call down 
blessings upon those who had doomed them 
to sword and fire, and slain their dearest by 
strange tortures. Feltor stood as it were 
entranced, and for a time heard no more. 
There was no. longer any terror upon him, 
b\it a wild unearthly something unknown till 
now began to flutter at his heart. Pang 
followed pang — he knew not what it might 
be — his heart felt near to bursting, and as 
this new stupendous thing — this sublimity of 
human pity and forgiveness, God-inspired, 
smote truly home, he fell in a mad transport 
of tears. Pride and shame fought alike, but 
alike were borne away. 

When at length this inward storm had 
spent itself, he struggled to his knees, and 
saw, uncertain and distorted through his tears, 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 141 

a ■woman robed in white, who held a child 
by the hand and looked down upon him. He 
dashed both hands across his eyes and sprang 
to his feet. 

The moonlight, broad and full, was on 
Vreda’s face, but he saw there no likeness of 
her self that had been. The face was of a 
lofty beauty, and wore a tranquil sadness. 
The starlike eyes looked on Feltor with pure 
pity. He stood before her with the child’s 
sense of awe, and the veil of secrecy which 
hides the thoughts of men from men seemed 
drawn away Irom him. 

‘ These things are strange to thee, Feltor,’ 
said Vreda, ‘ and but a httle while ago were 
strange to all men.’ 

The king stood silent and dared no more 
to look at her. Her soul yearned over him 
and his guilt and darkness. 

‘ This is thy child and Vreda’s,’ she said. 
He looked up at her with eyes of sudden 
terror. ‘ Fear not what I may know. Fear 
thine own soul and fly from thine own 
guilt.’ 

Her voice was sweet with pity. Feltor 


142 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


had not spoken, but he had framed the words 
within his mind : 

‘ It was not I ’ She raised a hand 

against him. 

‘ Lie not in thine own heart, Feltor. Thou 
mayst speak to me of these things hereafter. 
But this is thy child, flesh of thy flesh, and 
bone of thy bone. And Hanun hath maimed 
him, and he hath lain with the beasts of the 
field.’ 

‘ These things,’ stammered Feltor, ‘ were 
not of my doing.’ As he spoke he rebelled 
against himself. ‘ Why should I answer to 
thee ? ’ 

‘ Answer thyself, Feltor. ’Twas Vreda 
made thee king, and clothed thee in love, 
and heaped kindness upon thee — and the 
child is hers and thine.’ ^ 

‘ What knowest thou of Vreda ? ’ 

‘ Let it sufiice thee that I know,’ she an- 
swered patiently. ‘I am not here to chide. 
Have pity on thyself, Feltor, and have pity on 
the child.’ 

Conscience, dwarfed and stunted in that 
savage soul, took miraculous growth beneath 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


143 


these words and sprang to giant size. The 
commonplace of cruelty grew hideous to him. 
He fell upon his knees, and holding out his 
arms to the child, looked on him with eyes 
filled with a new hunger. The lad stood in 
the moonlight shrinking back from him and 
holding Vreda’s robe, but there was a child- 
ish courage in his face. A gleam of his dead 
mother, a touch of Feltor’s self, mingled in 
his look. 

‘Dost fear me, Wankard.^*’ asked the king. 
At that instant he felt that he had given 
his own flesh to the torture, and the first 
touch of fatherly feeling he had known since 
Vreda’s death made his eyes dim. ‘ Have no 
fear,’ he cried ; ‘ none shall hurt thee more. 
Thy father is king, lad, when all is said, and 
him that shall but breathe unkindly on thee 
will I slit at the throat. Come hither, Wan- 
kard. 1 have forgotten thee too long.’ 

Wankard moved timidly, but Vreda per- 
suaded him forward with a gentle hand. 
Fehor strained him, to his breast, and kissed 
him again and again. 

‘ Hast thy mother’s eyes,’ he said tenderly ; 


144 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


and then rising with a sudden fury, he went 
raving up and down in the moonlight and 
the shadow. ‘ His mother ! Fool, to barter 
gold for lead, to sell truth for a liar, and a 
wife for a wanton ! That jay of Caerlheon 
shall roast for it.’ 

Then he ran back to Wankard and over- 
whelmed him witii half-savage caresses until 
the boy cried out for fear. ' 

‘ Did I harm thee ? Nay, pretty blossom ! 
Who should hurt anything hke thee ? How 
found I the heart ? ’ 

And the savage heart thus wakened could 
hardly have enough of its love-feast. 

‘ Shalt be brave to-morrow, dear one. 
Shalt go as a king’s son should, with a 
leopard-skin for thy shoulders, and a sword 
■ — wouldst like a sword ? Ay ? And if any 
doeth thee spite wilt out with iron upon him, 
I warrant me. Art pup of the game, mine 
own lad ! ’ 

Then again he set him down swiftly, and 
again went raging up and doAvn. 

‘Hanun hath potions? I will have him 
by the throat hkewise. How should I forget 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 145 

mine own flesh and blood, but because of 
their drugs and enchantments ? I will burn 
out the brood ’ 

‘ Give not thine heart to vengeance.* 

He paused in a wrathful amaze. 

‘ And to what then should I give mine 
heart ? ’ He laughed at the very madness of 
the rebuke even in the height of his anger. 
‘ Give me the child,’ he said. 

‘He shall be with thee at sunrise,’ Vreda 
answered. 

‘And why not now?’ he asked, with a 
new sullenness of face and voice. 

‘I go to seek Heurtan,’ she answered, 
‘ and he and the child shall come to thee 
together.’ 

‘Ay!’ said Feltor. ‘They chased Heur- 
tan also, because he had too shrewd a wit 
for Wenegog. Didst love Heurtan, lad, didst 
not ? ’ ' 

‘ Yea, I love Heurtan,’ said the boy. 

‘ Shalt have him with thee again,’ cried 
the king, snatching him up once more in his 
arms. ‘ And he . and thee shall go bravely 
together.’ y 


146 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

‘I will bring them both at sunrise,’ said 
Vreda. Feltor set Wankard upon his feet ; 
the child ran to her, and she took him by the 
hand. ‘ Thy light is dawning, Feltor. Thou 
mayst yet be worthy to sit amongst the 
lowly.’ 

She moved away, leading the child, and 
Feltor stood in amazement, staring after her. 
The words were the words of madness, but 
yet they left some dim echo of great mean- 
ing. He listened to it as he had listened 
when a child to the mysterious voices of the 
forest wind, conscious of deeps and spaces in 
his mind which he had not known before. 

Vreda and Wankard vanished in the intri- 
cacies of the woodland path. Feltor turned 
away, and having cast about for a moment — 
for he had wandered here with no marking 
of his own footsteps — hit upon his homeward 
road, and followed it. An hour’s swift walk- 
ing brought him to the edge of the forest. 
His heart had been filled with strange thoughts, 
and he had by turns raged and melted as he 
remembered Barxelhold and Wankard. But 
now as he pushed the last branch aside the 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 147 

lust of blood shot through him like a fire, 
for a bare three hundred yai'ds away Osweng 
ran across the clearing in full moonlight. The 
king, skirting the wood, and holding to its 
shadow, sped in the same direction. 

Osweng ran towards a group of stone huts 
which stood on the margin of the forest. 
Teltor racing silently on the greensward, 
and watching Osweng with sidelong eyes of 
hatred, saw him enter the central hut. 

‘Hanun?’ he asked himself. ‘What 
should he be doing with Hanun at this 
hour ? ’ . 

He saw a light gleam through the door- 
way as Osweng pushed the hanging of skins 
aside, and running softly after him paused, 
crouching beneath the wall. He heard a 
sound of breathing at his shoulder, and 
turned with his hand at his knife. 

‘ What dost here, Eoedweg ? ' 

* I saw and followed.’ 

‘ Listen.’ 

The two crouched near the hanging of 
skins together, and each set his soul in his 

i 1 


ears. 


148 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


CEAPTEE X. 

Hanun was Wenegog’s right arm, his execu- 
tioner, his adviser, his slave, and now and 
then his master. The man was born out of 
his time. A thousand years later he might 
have been burned as a magician. Five hundred 
years later still he might have achieved great- 
ness as a mocking philosopher. Born where 
he was, he used the supple dexterities of 
his mind and the practised nimbleness of 
his hands for the invention and working 
of miracles for the support of a faith he 
laughed at, and would with whole heart have 
despised but for the fact that its skilful pro- 
fession brought wealth and power. For his 
time he was a man of learning, and he loved 
to converse with strange people. He had met 
mariners from the far East, and soldiers and 
priests fiom Eome, and having made such 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


149 


study of the religions of the earth as was 
possible for him, had arrived at the conviction 
that Odan and There, Wodon and Freja, Jeho- 
vah and Jesus, Jupiter and Minerva, were alike 
non-existent. As a means of providing a 
comfortable living for a priesthood, any one 
of them seemed to him as good as any other ; 
and though he went through his own public 
business with a grave face, he made up for 
his self-restraint by an increase of inward 
laughter. 

In person he was spare and tall, and there 
was a certain malignant devil of suavity in his 
face — the complacency of a fed tiger. He sat, 
at the moment of Osweng’s arrival, in act of 
preparing a miracle for the next feast-day. 
About his arm, beneath his wide bell-shaped 
sleeve, was curled a fangless adder, and in his 
right hand he poised a frog. The trouble of 
the trick lay in teaching the frog at a signal 
to leap into the open bosom of his robe, and 
in inducing the adder, at a simultaneous sign, 
to crav,'l from the sleeve. Osweng slid into 
the chamber at the moment when the trick 
was for the first time successfully performed. 


ISO ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

The frog leapt into the robe — the snake 
writhed out of it. Ilanun rose smiling. To 
Osweng’s eye the thing looked like a trans- 
mutation. 

‘ Have no fear, my child,’ said the Druid, 
rising with a courtly grace. ‘ For them that 
have studied nature she hath no wonders. 
’Twere as easy to make a toad of thee as a 
snake of the frog thou sawest but now.’ 

The Lennian’s face took a comfortless 
aspect at this statement, and Hanun, turning 
to drop the snake into a wicker basket, sent 
the frog dexterously after him, and impri- 
soned both with an oaken lid. 

‘ She hath consented,’ said Osweng. 

‘ Good,’ returned Hanun. ‘ Youth will 
still be served. The hunt passeth by here to- 
morrow .P ’ Osweng nodded. ‘ She can feign 
well, and must feign her best to-morrow. 
Have her qualmish ere she starts, until the 
king himself shall beseech her to rest at 
home. This will she in no wise do, being 
bright and brave, and keen after the chase. 
Then again must she be touched with qualm 
at the starting, and again be too keen on the 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 151 

chase to return. But here, without, she must 
be seized with great pains and cry out upon 
Hanun and his herbs of soothing, and awhile 
she shall be here for quiet in my care, until a 
score of thy lads of Lennia fall upon me and 
bind me and gag me, and thou ridest away 
with thy prize to the border. And when that 
coraeth to pass, if thou hast a value for thy 
prize or thy weasand, ride fast,’ 

‘ Trust me for that,’ said Osweng, ‘ The 
fool saw us to-night, sitting handed together 
at table, and went out with never a word. 
He hath no courage to face a Lennian,’ 

Osweng’s braggart smile went sick and 
ghastly at that second, for the king with a 
gleam in his hand dashed through the door- 
way, Hanun moved forward by instinct, and 
the uplifted blade struck deep into his breast. 
The Lennian ran crouching with an inarticu- 
late cry of terror, and ere Feltor could with- 
draw the blade had slipped into the night. 
He set his supple limbs to run, but a huge 
buffet felled him at the first stride, and before 
his scattered senses had again gathered them- 
selves together Eoedweg had thonged him 


152 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


wrist and ankle, and stood carelessly astride 
of him. 

Feltor emerged from the hut, and Eoed- 
weg, turning his head upon his big shoulders, 
pointed at the prostrate Osweng with a laugh. 
The king struck at the prostrate figure with 
his foot. 

‘ Up, hound, and march 1 ’ 

Eoedweg drew his knife and slashed the 
thong which bound Osweng’s ankles. 

‘ I am thy guest, Feltor,’ said the chieftain. 
‘ I demand safe conduct to my own borders.’ 

‘ Shalt go parcel-wise,’ said Eoedweg ; ‘ a 
joint at a time.’ 

‘ The fool saw ye last night ? ’ said Feltor. 
He put his sandalled foot upon Osweng’s 
throat, and moved it lightly there with a 
.jocund ferocity. ‘And he saw ye handed? 
And he had no courage to face a Lennian ? ’ 

With that he trod so fiercely that the cap- 
tive’s life was near being choked out of him ; 
but then, reflecting that he was parting with 
vengeance too lightly, he drew back. 

‘ Bring him on,’ he said, and lest he should 
yield to his own impulse walked away. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


*53 


‘May it please thee to rise, sweet sir,' 
smiled Eoedweg. ‘ I am but one of the 
rougher sort, and scarce meet for such dainty 
company, but we must needs travel together 
for a time. And if I smote thee but now a 
soldier must needs follow orders, and I am 
like to smite thee again.’ 

‘The word of this will come tingling to 
thine ears in a while,’ groaned Osweng as 
Eoedweg plucked him to his feet. 

‘ It may reach mine,’ said Eoedweg, who 
was in excellent good humour. ‘ But thine ? 
I doubt me.’ 

‘ I am a vassal of Eome,' cried Osweng. 

‘ Grandam’s beard ! ’ replied Eoedweg. 
‘Here is a thing to brag on! Move quicklier, 
fair sir, lest I pinch thee ’twixt thumb and 
finger and mar thee for the king’s uses.’ 

Feltor paused ahead, and awaited them. 

‘Bring him to the eating-hall,’ he said 
briefly, ‘ and see that he escapes thee 
not.’ 

‘ He hath no envy to run,’ replied Eoed- 
weg. ‘ He hath a hare’s talent that way, yet 
he goeth slow as a snail. Will thy daintiness 


154 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


stir somewhat more sprightly ? I am be- 
holden to thee.’ 

At a prick from Eoedweg’s long sword 
Osweng leapt with a faint cry of fear and 
pain. Feltor strode on grimly in front, and, 
reaching the palace, walked at once into 
Barxelhold’s chamber. A bronze lamp stood 
burning in a niche at the head of the couch, 
and she lay asleep with one hand beneath her 
cheek. She was half nude, and a light Italian 
shawl covered her barely from the waist to 
the knees. Her breast heaved tranquilly, and 
she smiled in her dreams. Her yellow hair 
streamed unconfined, half veiling her neck 
and shoulder. One foot had fallen over the 
edge of the couch, and hung there in the 
pretty negligence of sleep. 

Feltor stood awhile regarding her, and 
then sank to a low seat near the couch, and 
bending forward with folded arms fell to 
wondering how so much beauty hid so trea- 
cherous a heart. He knew her falsehood 
beyond doubt, and yet the beauty of her face 
and body held him. Barbarian as he was, the 
shame of this bondage was loathsome to him. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS IS5 

and he recoiled from it and her with a linger- 
ing repugnance. It was a man’s right to MU 
her as she lay there, and thinking thus he 
drew the knife, still wet with the blood of 
Hanun, from his girdle. The shameful sweet- 
ness held him too strongly, and the weapon 
went back to its place. He had not the right 
to kill her unheard. It was but a poor 
excuse, yet it served. The tumult of his 
thoughts numbed his mind, and his emotions 
became obscure, like multitudinous sounds 
mixing and lost in one another. 

He thought of his dead consort, and the 
pride, reverence, and tenderness which his 
lust for Barxelhold had slain and buried. He 
thought of the scene in the forest, and the 
passion of tears which had but now mastered 
him ; of his child and the new tenderness 
which had assailed himself ; of the mysterious 
visitant of whom men spoke as Ashtali, and 
the strange power she held ; of that mad tribe 
who prayed their god to bless their enemies. 
Then, dimly, the fancy touched him — if aU 
men were of that mind revenge was at an end. 
He had slain Hanun for aught he knew or 


156 . ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

cared, and yet if all the world were mad with 
mercy, Wenegog would have no strife against 
him. It might be well to be at peace with 
Wenegog. Touched thus, his mind, dulled as 
it was, caught a glimpse of reasonableness in 
the fantastic craze. 

The slow light of dawn broadened in the 
space between the hangings and the roof, and 
the flame of the lamp grew pale and sickly. 
There was a little stir outside, and Eoedweg’s 
voice growled at Osweng. At this Feltor’s 
slumbering rage awoke again, and so stirred 
within him, that in pure dread of it he stole 
from the chamber, and laying the stained 
knife upon the table went back weaponless. 
Whether the growing light disturbed her or 
the sound of Feltor’s stealthy footsteps brought 
suspicion to her mind, Barxelhold stirred and 
murmured. The king stood stone still and 
listened. Her face lay upturned to the grey 
light and she smiled. 

‘ Osweng,’ she breathed softly. 

‘ Ay ? ’ said Feltor drily. There was a 
sudden harshness in his throat. 

She awoke and stared at him with fright- 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


157 


ened eyes, as yei uncertain and full of sleep, 
as if he were some monster of her dreams. 

‘ Askest for Osweng ? ’ Feltor demanded 
with a threatening quiet. ‘ He is nigh at 
hand.’ 

‘ Osweng? ’ she answered, looking at him 
with a feigned wonder. ‘ Why should I ask 
for Osweng? Art worth many Oswengs to 
my thinking, Feltor.’ 

Broad awake now, and with all her wits 
at work, she slipped from the couch with a 
face of smiling innocence, and catching the 
light shawl of Italian stuff about her shoulder, 
advanced towards him. He put out a hand 
against her, and she, reading the resolved and 
stony purpose in his face, clutched the hand 
in both hers and sought his eyes with a candid 
appeal so pure and true to look at that his 
rage took a sort of wonder into it. Her look 
changed to a frightened perplexity. 

‘ Osweng ? ’ she s^d again, as if she sought 
for something in her mind. ‘ Osweng ? What 
is this of Osweng ? ’ 

The shawl slipped from her and she stood 
lu«trous in her own naked whiteness from 


158 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

head to foot, her blue eyes clear as twin 
stars, her tender figure half crouching in false 
wonder and suppliance. 

‘ Thou vile innocence ! ’ cried Feltor. ‘ This 
of Osweng ? Didst sit hand in hand with him 
before mine eyes last night ? ’ 

‘ No, no ! ’ she cried, as if in a wild 
wonder. ‘ Feltor ! ’ 

‘ Didst plot to fly with him to-day ? ’ he 
asked, still holding her at arm’s length. 

‘ Fly ? ’ Her eyes wandered hither and 
thither in a seeming amazement, as if to ask 
what madness this might be. 

‘ Didst plan to fall sick nigh the house of 
Hanun ? ’ 

‘ Feltor ! Feltor ! He is crazed. The 
gods have mercy ! No, Feltor, no ! ’ 

‘ Quit this fooling,’ said Feltor, and sud- 
denly the flame of passion burned through 
the bonds which held him. ‘ Eoedweg I ’ he 
shouted, ‘ bring that villain hither ! ’ 

He flung Barxelhold from him, and dragged 
the curtain of skins aside. She, with a cry, 
seized the fallen shawl and, darting to the 
couch, hid herself there. Eoedweg appeared 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


1 59 


for an instant in the act of thrusting Osweng 
into the chamber, and then dropped back 
again. Feltor seized the stumbling captive in 
a swift and teirible grasp, arm and ankle, and 
swung him high. His vast strength was 
trebled by his rage. Osweng shrieked and 
writhed, and Barxelhold lifted her white face 
and half arose in terror. 

‘ Wilt have him ? ’ roared Feltor. ‘ Take 
him!’ 

He dashed the figure at her feet. The 
body fell with a dull crash, and then lay 
motionless without a moan. For a mere 
second Feltor and Barxelhold glared at each 
other, and then with a wild and anguished 
call upon his name the queen flung herself 
bodily upon Osweng, and, raising his head 
from the ground, strove to staunch the flow 
of blood with the priceless shawl which had 
covered her. 

‘ What is this of Osweng ? ’ cried the king, 
with a wild irony. ‘ Hast dropped the hood 2 ’ 
He groped about his girdle for his knife, and 
looking up, as her hands vainly clasped 
Osweng’s head, she saw the gesture and knew 


i6o ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

its meaning. ‘ My knife,’ he muttered ; ‘ where 
is my knife ? ’ 

He dashed from the chamber, and Barxel- 
hold felt that her last breath was near. In 
that supreme moment the scenes of her whole 
life flashed with an intense rapidity before 
her. Her first sight of Feltor when he came 
newly home from war against the Eoman 
invader — the glade where he first spoke to 
her of love — her father’s chamber where the 
news of his near marriage with the queen 
came to her — the road in the oak-grove where 
Wenegog had broached his plot for Vreda’s 
death — the couch nigh which she shrank — 
the same couch with Vreda’s pale face and 
eyes of suffering shining from it, her own 
arm about the sufferer’s neck, the devilish 
potion in her own hand. She saw the help- 
less head fall back — she seemed to hear the 
tinkling of the graven goblet as it fell. All 
this in a dozen heart-beats of uttermost fear. 

The curtain moved. She covered and 
closed her eyes in expectation of the end. A 
voice rose in the antechamber, and she knew 
it for the voice of Vreda. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS i6i 

* Stay ! What wouldst thou do ? She is 
thy wife ? ’ 

Then she heard the clash and clatter of a 
blade which fell upon the floor. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


i6a 


CHAPTER XI. 

After this there was a silence which seemed 
long to Barxelhold. Then she heard words 
she could not distinguish, and sounds which 
had no meaning for her. There was a sick 
whirl and torrent in her blood, with strange 
pauses and reverses in it, and all objects upon 
which she looked grew dimly grey, and wore 
a palpitating outline of bright light. All 
things became indifferent, but none the less 
there was a great horror upon her, until with 
a shock this and everything sped out of exist- 
ence, and she lay in a swoon. 

She awoke chilled and troubled, not know- 
ing at first what had befallen her. Osweng’s 
groaning breathing first recalled her to the 
plade and time, and she turned to look at 
liii y leaning on both hands, with her damp 
hair veiling her face and bosom. He lay 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 163 

where he had fallen, witn no change in so 
much as the posture of a finger. His face 
was white, and the red braids of his hair 
were in part blackened and caked with blood. 
There was no voice or movement in the ante- 
chamber, or even in the great hall without, 
and the silence threatened her. She could 
not teU how long she had lain in that 
darkness of the mind, but it was now broad 
day. 

The first conscious impulse which assailed 
her was to fly from Feltor’s anger to the 
shelter her father could afibrd her, but as 
she arose to put this purpose into action she 
became aware of her own nudity, and shrank 
even from the presence of the swooning 
Osweng with the first touch of modesty she 
had ever known. Stealing hither and thither 
with frightened, noiseless feet, she found her 
scattered raiment and attired herself, fas- 
cinated meanwhile by Osweng’s closed and 
swollen eyehds. 

When she had dressed she dared to raise 
the curtains of her chamber, and peeped fear- 
iully into the hall without. Its loneliness 


i64 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


lent her something of courage, and she stole 
through its silent space noiselessly, hke a 
shadow. The vast hall beyond lay open to 
the sunlight wide and still. She slipped back 
to the antechamber and listened at the cur- 
tains of Feltor’s apartment, hearing no sound. 
Was she utterly deserted ?— left alone with 
her paramour who should have been? She 
longed to beat her hands and shriek aloud, 
but she had not courage to utter a sound, and 
her breath was secret and confined. 

The curtains had swayed aside at the 
centre behind the figure of the person who 
had last passed between them, and there was 
a gap through which a cautious eye might 
look unseen. She approached it on tiptoe as 
stealthily as a midnight thief, and gazing 
about the chamber, beheld Feltor, who lay 
asleep with half- bared chest and limbs. At 
the moment at which her glance discovered 
him he was silent, and his face was tranquil ; 
but a moment later his features were distorted, 
his breath came hard, and, raising his massive 
right arm in the air, he struck downwards 
with a gesture of intense rage. His clenched 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 165 

fist smote the ground, and he awoke staring 
and grappling with an imagined enemy. Barx- 
elhold fied in a voiceless extremity of terror, 
for his eyes had seemed to light on hers, and 
with swift feet and outstretched hands she 
ran into the great waste hall to find herself 
confronted by her father, who, with his white 
robe swirling to and fro about his feet, strode 
wrathfully towards her. Her pent fear es- 
caped her in a cry, and she rushed to meet 
him, casting both arms about his neck in 
hysteric welcome. 

‘ What is this that comes to mine ears ? ’ 
he asked, disdaining to soothe her. ‘ Feltor 
hath dared to raise a hand against thee ? ’ 
She had no share in his wrath, but since she 
was not merely a savage, but more than half 
a woman, the question recalled Feltor to her 
mind, as he had clutched Osweng, and swung 
him high in his prodigious grasp, and the 
husband shone superb and glorious, terrible, 
lovable, worshipful — a thing of masterhood 
and awe — her lord and king — a man! — and 
in the space of that heartbeat she loved 
him. 


i66 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


‘ Nay,’ she cried, with a burst of weeping ; 
‘ he raised no hand against me. He is no 
smiter of women.’ 

‘ ’Twas thy tiring-woman brought me word 
of it,’ said Wenegog. ‘She sayeth he sought 
his knife to slay thee, and w'ould have slain 
thee, but for the strange Avoman.’ 

With her new image of Feltor in her mind 
the mention of the strange woman roused 
Barxolhold to wrath. If Feltor chose to slay 
her, what I’ight had any woman to such in- 
fluence over him as would baulk him of his 
will ? OsAveng — OsAveng was contemptible 
now. EAmr so little piteous perhaps, but 
assuredly contemptible. Feltor was her king, 
and lit to be king of all, and knew how to 
have vengeance like a man, and how, like a 
man, to refrain from vengeance on that which 
was not worthy of his scorn. She would not 
have it that the strange woman had saved her 
life, and yet with feminine logic, which lives 
unchanged through the ages, she hated her 
for having saved it. She poured all this on 
Wenegog, incoherently, and mingled with 
tears and interjections. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


167 


‘ Go, pretty fool ! ’ said her father impa- 
tiently. ‘ Hath Feltor threatened thee ? ’ 

‘ Threatened me ? Nay, he hath not love 
enough to threaten me.’ 

‘ And thou canst find the face to moan for 
that ? ’ asked Wenegog. ‘ Tell me, wast to 
ride away with Osweng to-day, wast not ? ’ 

‘ He hearkened to her,’ moaned Barxel- 
hold. ‘ He would not have hearkened unto 
me.’ 

‘ Seven holy toads of Aiea ! ’ cried Wene- 
gog, ‘ I am past patience. Here cometh one 
idiot magpie chattering that Feltor would 
have slain another, and here is that other 
chattering and shrieking because she is not 
slain. And Feltor hath given that brat of 
Vreda’s in charge of Eoedweg, and hath called 
back Heurtan to be his dry nurse — a male 
fool’s fit business.’ 

His anger choked him, and he went strid- 
ing up and down. 

‘The child is Feltor’s flesh and blood,’ 
stormed Barxelhold ; ‘ he hath a right to care 
for him.’ 

Wenegog stared at her in amazement, 


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ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


and stalked from the hall. She, dreading 
to be left alone, followed him into the open, 
and there came upon a surprising spec- 
tacle. A great semicircle of men, women, 
and children stood about the palace front, 
looking with one consent, and in a deep and 
respectful silence, towards a group beneath 
the wall. This group consisted of Vreda, 
David, Boedweg, Heurtan, and Wankard. 
They were all seated except the child, who 
ran from one to the other with a bright in- 
fantine glee, and there was nothing in the act 
or aspect of any one of them to account for 
the rapt silence of the crowd. 

‘ What is the meaning of this ? ’ Barxel- 
hold demanded. 

‘ They are agaze to see the Blasphemer 
under thine own walls,’ answered Wenegog, 
‘ and for once they have a reason for their 
wonder.’ 

Between the half-ring of onlookers and the 
group on which all eyes were fixed, stood a 
band of a score or thereabouts, chieftains of 
the court and officers of the priesthood. To- 
wards this group moved Wenegog, and to 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 169 

him the attention of the crowd was at once 
diverted. 

‘Woerex,’ said Wenegog, addressing one 
of the chiefs, ‘ bind me yonder hoary rascal, 
and bear him to the Cave of Sacrifice.’ 

‘The king hath bidden Eoedweg to see 
that no harm befall him,’ answered the chief- 
tain, 

‘This is no matter of the king’s,’ said 
Wenegog coldly. ‘He blasphemes the gods, 
and they are weary of forbearing. Have a 
care lest thou side with him.’ 

The chief paled, but he made no movement 
in answer to the slow and imperious gesture 
with which the Arch-Druid commanded him 
towards David. At this open yet tacit rebel- 
lion, Wenegog raged inwardly, but by an 
efibrt he maintained an appearance of calm. 
He gazed from one face to another, and saw 
everywhere a lowering pretence of uninterested 
indifference, which he knew to be set up as 
a barrier between himself and them. Not an 
eye met his, and for the first time he saw his 
great office confronted by irreverence. 

‘ The king holds his shield between the 


70 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


gods and the thing that angers them ? ’ he 
askoti in a voice of menacing quiet. ‘ And 
how long think you that the shield will stay 
there ? Or the king ? ’ 

He would hardly have spoken thus if he 
had not seen clearly at what a des])erate pass 
his own authority liad arrived. He knew 
this better than any man alive, for though he 
had been fluent in excuses, and had even 
blinded his own adherents and the crowd, he 
read in the events of Bel’s day the prophetic 
record of his doom. He had hailed gladly 
the popular belief that Ashtali had wrought 
the intervention between Bel and his intended 
victims, for this at least left his own faiths 
untouched. If the gods warred within their 
own lofty circle, and he awhile were indeter- 
minate as to the result of their conflict, it was 
none the less the gods who struggled, and he 
was none the less their minister. But now 
the woman whom the populace in their rude 
faith had identified with their own best-loved 
deity, sat side by side with Wenegog’s declared 
and open enemy. The king protected Heur- 
tan — Heurtan, and David, and this strange 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 171 

new arrival whom the people worshipped, had 
charge of Wankard — the future king would 
be bred in the new faith — everywhere, look 
where he would, the clouds of dreadful night 
seemed rolling up. No power of man could 
bid them back, but the gods did all things 
according to their will. He would speak for 
them, and for his own ambitions, and the loves 
and hatreds that became him and were a part 
of him. 

‘ Thee, Woerex,’ he said, raising his gaunt 
hand high in the air, and holding it there 
waving and hovering like a bird of prey 
above some meaner, timid creature of the 
fields — ‘ thee, Woerex, do I smite with a 
curse. Thou hast heard the voice of autho- 
rity and thou hast not obeyed. Therefore 
thy sword shall break in battle, thy right 
arm shall shrink, and thou shalt go headless 
to the Nethergloom.’ 

The man went ashen, and his comrades 
fell away from him. Wenegog’s voice reached 
aH ears, and the crowd stood palpitating. 

‘ Aefor,’ continued Wenegog, falling back 
into his own stern self-command, and sin- 


172 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


gling man by man by name and gesture, 
‘ Daelchru, Isombar, Baeg, Zoelmendak, Toi- 
bani, seize yonder man and bind him/ 

‘ Elangor, lad,’ sang out old Eoedweg, 
‘ come hither to thy dad’s side. And thou, 
old Sermat, out iron, and see who lays a hand 
on him the king hath given me to guard.’ 

The two on whom he called — the one 
ruddy-bearded and blue-eyed, the other griz- 
zled and somewhat bent, but stalwart stiU — 
ran towards him and set themselves on either 
side of him. Seeing them standing there, the 
chieftains who had stepped forward to obey 
Wenegog’s orders paused. It was not that 
they feared the little force before them, though 
few would have thought it a pleasant pastime 
to provoke Eoedweg to fight, but the old war- 
dog’s appeal to the authority of the king set 
a restraining hand upon them. 

‘ Let no blood be shed for me,’ said David, 
rising and passing between his guard and the 
reluctant advance of his assailants. ‘ Art wel- 
come,’ he cried to Wenegog — ‘ art welcome 
to this poor body, thou man of evil deeds. 
Ninety years and odd have I worn this bur- 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


173 


then of the iSesh, and I will lay it down right 
gladly/ 

Eoedweg set a mighty hand upon his 
shoulder and drew him away. The dawn of 
battle laughed already in his eyes. 

‘ Stand back, old Valour,’ he said, with a 
half-admiring scorn. ‘ There is no word of 
thee in this. The king hath bidden me guard 
thee, and I follow the king while my joints 
hold together.’ 

Barxelhold had scarce eyes for anything 
but Vreda, who had arisen, and now stood in 
perfect calm, with one hand caressing Wan- 
kard’s clustering curls. Barxelhold’s soul 
offered but a poor native soil for the growth 
of any faith, but she had been bred to un- 
questioning belief, and though they touched 
her but lightly and rarely, the spirits of air 
and earth and flood and fire were thick about 
her to her apprehension. Of what element 
the woman before her was born she could not 
guess, but all things marked her — her calm 
and her power aihke — as a being of another 
sphere. 

Wenegog’s voice roused Barxelhold from 


174 ONE traveller RETURNS 

her preoccupation. The men he had chosen 
came slowly on, as if, instead of counting six 
to three, they had been outnumbered fifty- 
fold, checked by the invocation of the king’s 
name. 

‘ Do my bidding! ’ cried Wenegog, releasing 
the rage which seethed within him. ‘ Him that 
lags shall the gods deal with.’ 

The six advanced sword in hand, and 
the three, sword in hand, awaited them. The 
assailants by instinct widened out and ap- 
proached two and two against their opposers. 
Barely six paces apart they paused, quick foot, 
keen eye, staunch hand, all ready, and every 
man strung from head to foot. And whilst 
each man watched warily for his chance, and 
each brace parted slowly in preparation for a 
simultaneous rush, Vreda walked between, and 
the swords drooped. 

‘ Laggards and cowards ! ’ shrieked Wene- 
gog. ‘ Shall I do the work I set ye to ? ’ 

He stormed through the open line and 
stood before Vreda hke a figure of stone. Her 
mild eyes dwelt on his with the overmastering 
force of knowledge and pity he had felt before. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


175 


There was neither fear nor anger in her look 
— nothing but that awful inscrutable calm 
of knowledge and of pity. There seemed 
nothing secret from it. It pierced him to the 
soul. 

Cowed as he was, he knew that to recoil 
again before her was to lose all power. lie 
saw the Blasphemer’s triumph, and the head- 
long fall of the gods, and his old age dis- 
honoured, and his blood went venomous. 

‘ Cut her down,’ he groaned, in a voice 
scarce audible to those about him. ‘ Slav 
her.’ 

Not a man moved. But Barxelhold, drawn 
by some irresistible fascination, fluttered to 
Wenegog’s side and clung to him. Thoughts 
tumultuous and incongruous thronged and 
surged upon her, and slie saw her enemy and 
her saviour, a rival and a goddess, in the self- 
same flash of time. 

‘ My curses on every one of ye I ' cried 
Wenegog. ‘ Bel’s fire on every faithless heart 
in the coward crowd. Slay her! Cut her 
down ! ’ 

‘ Wouldst slay me, Wenegog ? ’ asked Vreda 


176 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

in that untroubled voice which fell like a heal- 
ing dew upon the hearts of all that heard 
it save the two who stood before her. ‘ Ee- 
member ! * 

She looked from one to the other, and as 
if her glance had power to draw their eyes 
together they turned, each caught and entan- 
gled in the other’s gaze. And by some dread- 
ful instinct each saw the face of the dying 
Vreda as she lay upon her couch, and their 
eyes took and gave a light of horror as they 
read each the other’s memory. 

To the rest who heard the word it brought 
some remembrance, sweet or sad, if it were no 
more than the face of the mother who laughed 
with them in infancy, or the sound and odour 
of the clods that fell upon a comrade slain in 
battle. 

Wenegog had no power to struggle fur- 
ther, and resigned himself to an impotent rage. 
Then for one wild instant the thought touched 
him, what if the popular dream were true, and 
this woman were really Ashtali? He had 
threatened her with death, and his faith in his 
own creed was profound enough to make this 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


177 


an unspeakable fear to him. The thought 
passed almost as quickly as it came, but his 
fear remained behind. 

The six and the three stood confronting 
each other with drawn swords, and Vreda 
faced Barxelhold, and Wenegog between, when 
Feltor emerged from the great hall, and look- 
ing haggardly about him, saw the signs of 
fray beginning or ended. He moved swiftly 
forward. 

‘ What is this ? Swords drawn ? At whose 
order ? ’ 

‘ At his and mine,’ said Roedweg, pointing 
his blade at Wenegog. ‘ ’Twas thy command 
to safeguard this old tonguester, and ’twas his 
to have him bound.’ 

‘Wenegog,’ said Feltor, turning upon him 
sternly, ‘ we will speak of this hereafter. Go 
thy way.’ He looked about him with a surly 
majesty, and at a sign the swords went back 
to the girdles of their wearers. ‘ Listen 
all ! ’ he cried, raising his right hand. ‘ Who- 
so layeth a finger upon this man to his hurt 
shall die.’ 

The chieftains saluted and withdrew. 


178 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

leaving the king and queen, the Arch-Druid 
and Vreda, standing there alone. Wenegog 
masked his fear and wrath by a supreme 
effort. 

‘ Wilt lose thy seat in Eeanhola for this 
heretic outcast, Feltor? Be it so. Let the 
gods judge betwixt thee and me.’ 

Then Vreda spoke, turning her calm face 
upon the king. 

‘Thou hast done well, Feltor, and hast 
done more than as yet thou knowest.’ She 
turned towards Wenegog. ‘ For thee, I know 
not what may await, for the mercy of God is 
infinite ; but for thee, poor queen, the light 
shineth even now.’ 

Then with an infinite gentleness she took 
Barxelhold by the hand, and she, yielding to 
the touch, advanced a step towards Feltor. 

‘ Forgive her,’ said the tender voice. ‘ Thou 
hast need of much forgiveness.’ 

What influence, that pierced and soothed 
at once, ran through her own wanton heart 
Barxelhold could not tell, but she looked at 
Feltor with appealing eyes, and tears dripped 
down her face. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


179 


‘Feltor, forgive me.’ 

The king stood with averted eyes, and 
there was a visible throbbing in his throat. 
The re-clothed soul, calm, full of pity and 
forgiveness, spoke again ; 

‘ Forgive her.’ 

Feltor’s bared breast heaved tumultuously, 
and he turned towards Barxelhold. His own 
ruth was free of passion. He was not bred to 
pity or forgiveness, and his manhood fought 
against the softer influences which persuaded 
him, but at the sight of those repentant tears 
and at the thrill of that angelic voice he melted. 
His hand stretched out uncertainly, and An- 
gered, half withdrawn. Barxelhold bowed her 
head in fear and shame, and then the hand 
fell softly upon her yellow hair, and she knew 
herself pardoned. 

The forgiving hand was withdrawn so 
swiftly that she knew not what to understand. 
Feltor, turning away, had rushed to Wankard, 
and now, seizing him and hfting him high in 
his strong hands, bore him towards Barxelhold 
and set him at her feet. The queen stooped 
and kissed him in a rain of tears. 


i8o ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

‘ He is thine, Feltor.’ she said, ‘ and he 
shall be to me as if he were mine own.’ 

Feltor took the lad again, and lifting him 
to his shoulder cried aloud, with a wild break 
in his voice : 

* Coerleans ! Behold him that shall be 
king after me ! ’ 

At this the people pressed forward with 
glad cries again and again repeated, and Barx- 
elhold stealing furtively to Vreda’s side knelt 
and kissed her hand. 

‘Teach me,’ she half sobbed, half whis- 
pered, ‘ teach me the secret of thy peace.’ 

Wenegog turned away, deaf and blind, 
and the crowd fell back to make a passage 
for him. He strode straight homewards, and 
had reached the sacred grove before he was 
aware of a rapid halting step and a heavy 
breathing behind him. When the sounds 
touclied him consciously he stopped and 
turned. His pursuer paused — one of the 
hermit priests of Bel, a ghastly half-nude 
creature, cicatrised everywhere with old 
wounds, filthy, with matted hair and beard, 
and eyes half insane. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS l8i 

* Wouldst have thy will, master ?' 

*Who will not have his will when he 
may ? ’ said Wenegog. 

The weird thing drew a knife from its 
sheath, and holding it cautiously in his shak- 
ing hands, set a thumb quivering near its 
point, and waited with bared teeth, staring 
at the high priest through his red-rimmed 
eyes. 

‘ A touch is enough,* he said — ‘ a scratch. 
Break but the skin — ’tis all over.’ 

‘Thou knowest the man?’ asked Wenegog, 
smiling grimly. 

‘ Ay ! ’ said the other ; ‘ David the Blas- 
phemer. Speak the word.’ 

‘ The word is spoken,’ Wenegog answered. 

On the evening of that day Vreda and 
David sat together on the hillside near the 
Saint’s cave. Peace was in the air, and deep 
peace was at her heart, when out of the 
silence and warmth of the tranquil solitude 
the shadow of an undefined fear grew slowly. 
Her aged companion spoke, and his voice 
found words and meaning for her dread. 


lS3 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


* Daughter, ere long thou wilt be lonely. 
The day of my release h near.’ 

Then, as it were, the bonds of the flesh 
fell from her, and her spirit beheld the things 
that were to come. And she answered only 
with a renewal of her peace : 

‘ Father, 1 know it.’ 


tS3 


ONE TEAVELLER RETURNS 


CHAPTER XIl. 

A GROUP of Osweng’s Lennian followers 
stood disconsolately about the house of 
Hanun. Their master had ordered them to 
meet him at early morning, and here already 
was broad forenoon, and as yet no sign of 
him. Hanun, who should have assisted in 
the enterprise upon which they were em- 
ployed, whatever it might prove to be, had 
been found near death, and a Druid of his 
own craft having been hastily summoned, had 
dressed his wound and still sat with him. 

Whilst the Lennians wondered at their 
master’s absence the Druid emerged from the 
hut and besought their help for the removal 
of Hanun to the open air. 

‘ He is dying then ? ’ said one of them. 

‘ I know not as yet,’ the Druid answered ; 
* but his time is not long.’ 


i 84 one traveller RETURNS 

The Lennians assisted in the preparation 
of a couch of branches and skins beneath the 
spreading boughs of a solitary oak which 
stood near at hand, and this being done, 
followed the Druid into the hut. They 
passed a length of unbleached felt under 
the body of the wounded man, and bore him 
to the shadow of the tree and laid him down. 
He was Conscious, and as they moved with 
him he groaned feebly. When they had set 
him on the couch he lay staring with wide 
and sunken eyes at the depth of shadow over- 
head. There had been a great effusion of 
blood — his robe was heavily clotted with it, 
and his face and hands were of a dull and 
chalky white. 

When he had lain awhile he began to 
signal with those sunken eyes of his, and his 
pale lips moved ever so little. The attendant 
Druid kneeled beside him and set his ear to 
Hanun’s lips. 

‘ Thinkest,’ the wounded man panted, a 
word at each laboured breathing, ‘ thinkest — 
there is — aught — beyond — this — hfe ? ’ 

The Druid started and looked at him with 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 185 

a stricken countenance. Then he ■waved the 
Lennians away, and moistened Hanun’s pallid 
lips with water before he answered. 

‘Hast doubt of it ? ’ he asked, wonderingly. 

The suffering eyes signalled — Yes.’ 

* Strange,’ said the other, ‘ and at this 
hour most strange.’ The eyes asked why. ‘ Is 
Qot Ashtali returned to earth again ? Ay, 
and without that, hast felt, wrestling with Bel 
or with Odan for curse or blessing, the god 
strike through thy bosom ? ’ The weak head 
rolled slightly from side to side witli a des- 
pairing ‘ Never ! ’ — plain as a spoken word. 
‘ With these eyes have I seen the Nethergloom 
and these ears have heard the roarings of the 
prisoners. Yea, and I have seen Eeanhola 
and kings at feast there, and have heard their 
goodly singing.’ 

The pale lips moved again, and Hanun 
breathed a single word : 

‘ Dreams.’ 

So Hanun lay and stared at Death as one 
looks at a wall, seeing nothing beyond it. 
The live beast wounded lay in some such pain 
as his ; died as he was dying, rotted, dissolved. 


i86 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


flew abroad in vile odours, made the grass 
grow rank, and vanished in that wise, drawn 
into earth and air. Man went the same pro- 
gress to a foul decay, and the earth drew a 
like nourishment and sweetness from him. 
He had known these things from childhood. 
Why should he strive to make certainty un- 
certain, and change the whole current of 
things because he lay dying? He philoso- 
phised in his own fashion. The blood was 
the hfe, and in them in whom it ran lustily 
dwelt courage. It was the ebbing of the vital 
tide which laid this chill and fear upon his heart. 

Whilst he lay thinking thus, and seeming 
moment by moment to grow feebler, those 
who were near him beheld a serf, great of 
limb, Avho with bent head and shoulders strode 
towards them with a heavy burden on his 
back. The fellow came nearer, iron collared, 
killed to the knee in oxskin, and other- 
wise naked from head to foot. The burthen 
he bore became visible as the figure of a man, 
and in a while the Lennians recognised their 
chieftain Osweng. The serf, striding with 
huge ungainly steps, bore his load to the 


Orm TRAVELLER RETURNS 


187 


door of Hanun’s hut, and would there have 
sliot it to earth like a faggot of wood, but 
that two of Osweng’s men ran forward in time 
and caught their master as his feet touched 
the turf. 

‘ How comes this ? ’ demanded Osweng’s 
chief man. 

‘ Ask the king,’ the serf answered sulkily. 
‘ ’Twas he commanded me hither.’ 

The brute stared about him brutelike, 
not cruel, nor pitying, nor curious, wiped the 
sweat from his brow with his great hairy arm, 
and slouched away again, his shoulders still 
bent as if beneath their burthen. 

The Lennians stripped off their cloaks to 
make a couch for Osweng. One ran for 
water, whilst another severed the thongs 
which still bound the chieftain’s wrists. A 
third untied the knots of silken stuff which 
fastened the plaits of his hair, and all his men 
busied themselves with helpful offices about 
him. They bared his bruised limbs and body, 
and wondered how he had come by his in- 
juries. He writhed and groaned at every 
touch, but was at once too anguished and 


1 88 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

confused to answer any of tlie inquiries put to 
him. 

One of Osweng’s train turned upon the 
druid. 

‘ Will he live, Meneg ? ’ 

* Like enough,’ Meneg answered. ‘ He 
hath youth, but he hath been sore mis- 
used.’ 

Hanun meanwhile, to judge by the colour 
of his lips and the laboured weight of his 
breath, seemed passing fast away. There 
were moments when he seemed to swoon from 
consciousness, and Meneg stooping over him 
twice or thrice laid a hand upon his heart, 
and each time shook his head with more con- 
vincing emphasis of despondency. At the 
last, watched attentively by the others, he 
drew a knife from his girdle, and walking de- 
hberately to an oak sapling near at hand, 
he cut from its slender trunk — which was no 
thicker than two of a man’s fingers — imme- 
diately below the first forking of a branch, a 
piece of not more than three inches in length. 
He peeled off the bark with much delicacy, 
and then returning to Hanun, laid the piece 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 189 

of oak upon the blood-stained bandage of his 
wound. 

The sceptic opened his eyes and looked at 
him with a wry and sickly smile. 

‘ Useless,’ he breathed faintly, * Another 
fable ! ’ 

Meneg lifted his hands in pious grief, and 
walked towards the river, which was distant 
but a hundred paces. There he divested 
himself of his robe, and holding the piece of 
'oak in both hands, waded into the stream. 
'Except for the motions caused by the passage 
of his body the surface of the river seemed to 
sleep. It lay in glassy reaches, marked here 
and there by a curving line which had scarce 
a semblance of movement in it. It was the 
very full of the tide, and the stream was at a 
level pause. 

Meneg chose its precise centre as nearly 
as he could judge, and with murmured 
prayers and incantations laid the morsel of 
wood gently on the surface of the water. It 
swayed awhile to and fro before his breast, 
with a 'movement as slight and regular as if 
his breath had acted on it, and then slowly 


190 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

and steadily sailed down stream. He watched 
it with a look more and more desponding and 
downcast, when it stopped, hovered, and in 
obedience to a new impulse, sailed back again 
in a wide sweeping line, and was borne after 
many trembling vicissitudes to the shore, at 
a point higher than that at which it had been 
committed to the wave. The druid with 
smiles and thanksgivings waded to the bank, 
reassumed his robe, and hastened back towards 
Hamm, carrying the bit of oak in his hand. 

‘ Wilt live, Hanun ! ’ he cried gladly. 
‘ The augury is good ! ’ 

Hanun returned no sign of answer, and 
Meneg looking upon him became doubtful of 
the authority of the augury. He was even 
whiter than before, and a broad dark band 
beneath either eye gave ghastly force to his 
pallor. 

The day passed on with intervals of hope 
and despair. Passers-by brought news of the 
events of the morning, garbled and distorted, 
but showing clearly in the main that the two 
injured men were victims of the king’s ven- 
geance. Night stole on slowly and wearily, 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 191 

and slowly and wearily passed by, till in the 
gray of dawn, when Meneg and the chief man 
of Osweng’s guard sat dozingly at watch to- 
gether, the druid heard the rustle of a moving 
garment, and, awaking with a start, looked 
up and saw that strange woman whom the 
people called Ashtali, and behind her, grave 
and grey, the foreign heretic and blasphemer. 
Vreda had stretched out a hand towards 
Meneg’s shoulder, but he arose and escaped 
from her. 

‘ Word hath been brought us of these 
wounded,’ she said. ‘ This aged man hath 
great skill in simples.’ 

David without a word raised a wallet 
from his shoulders, and opening it drew out 
a little phial of clouded glass. Hanun lay 
gasping with baked lips wide open; and the 
Saint kneeling beside him poured a few drops 
of the contents of the phial upon his tongue. 
The wounded man’s eyes opened and he 
looked up with a glance of no recognition. 
Next David turned to Osweng, and, having 
examined him, produced from his wallet 
another phial with a wide mouth covered 


193 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


with a thong-bound skin. He gave this to 
Vreda, who, kneeling on the grass, withdrew 
the skin covering and applied an unguent to 
Osweng’s bruises. At first the ointment stung 
him, and he awoke with imprecations, but in 
a while its soothing influences became appa- 
rent, and his oaths softened into murmurs of 
recovered ease. David insinuated a hand 
gently beneath his head, and poured between 
his lips a few drops of the cordial he had 
already administered to Hanun. Osweng’s 
eyes brightened, and a tinge of colour flut- 
tered to his cheek. 

‘ A brave liquor,’ he said feebly. ‘ Give 
me more of it.’ 

‘Ingood time,’David answered, ‘butnot yet.’ 

The Saint watched Hanun carefully, and 
from time to time administered his cordial. 

‘ Thou hast taken them in hand,’ said 
Meneg jealously, ‘ and thou shalt abide the 
issue.’ 

‘ The issue,’ said Vreda, ‘ is in the hands 
of Him who guideth all things, and not with 
thee or with us.’ 

The druid wondered within himself that 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


193 


tljese words did not anger him. After his 
one protest he sat somewhat sulkily aside, 
and allowed Vreda and her companion to do 
as they would. He watched the Saint worn 
deringly whilst he prepared the expressed 
juices of beaten meat, mixed with hot water, 
and flavoured with coarse salt and herbs, and 
saw him administer the strengthening broth 
thus made to each of his patients. It touched 
him dimly now and then to think that David 
and Hanun were at bitter enmity, and as hour 
after hour went by and no cessation came in 
the tender care which Vreda and the Saint 
bestowed, he was more and more amazed. 
But six months ago Hanun had put to 
death ten of David’s most trusted adherents 
under horrible tortures, and three months 
later had slain twenty and odd others. 
Whenever Wenegog’s will had called for a 
refined and ingenious cruelty against the pro- 
fessors of the new faith Hanun had been his 
inventor, and Hanun’s pitiless heart had put 
his own inventions into use. And now 
here was the man, in defiance of all nature, 
nursing his relentless persecutor, and wilfingly 


194 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


restoring to him the power to he his enemy 
still. 

This astounding spectacle lived before 
Meneg’s eyes through many days and nights, 
and not before his alone. When at last 
David’s oriental simples and Yreda’s patient 
nursing had drawn Hanun fairly back to life, 
he himself was smitten with a profound aston- 
ishment. He said no word of this, but his 
heart writhed like a poisonous snake within 
him. Men of his own caste brought him 
word of Fcltor’s declaration, and though he 
cared no more for his own faith than for 
David’s, he cared much for the credit of his 
craft, and the temporal and spiritual powers 
that credit brought him ; and he laughed 
witliin himself to think that the man of all 
others who should most wish to see him die, 
should spend such pains to restore him to life 
and power. He was thinking thus upon an 
afternoon, propped comfortably upon a sloping 
couch of skins in the oak tree’s shade, when 
he heard the joyous cry of an infant voice, 
and in a swift sidelong glance recognised 
Wankard, who was speeding with outstretched 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 19S 

hands towards Vreda. Behind the child 
came Heurtan, stripped of the old devices of 
his office, but smiling and well fed and well 
content. The child’s laugh jarred on Hanun, 
but he was weak and a little wearied with 
the heat of the day, and so with such philo- 
sophy as he could command, he curled up his 
snakelike hate within, and bestowed himself 
for sleep. 

He was parched, and feverish fits assailed 
him often still. The cool sound of water 
rippling from one vessel to another reminded 
him of an afternoon draught which it was 
Vreda’s wont to bring him at that hour. He 
disdained to ask for it, and would, despite his 
thirst, have preferred to go without it. A 
soft voice spoke behind him, and though it 
whispered, his fox-ears caught every syllable. 

‘ See first if he sleepeth,’ said the soft 
voice. ‘ If he doth, wake him not.’ 

‘It is Hanun,’ the child answered fear- 
fully. 

‘ Be not afraid,’ said Vreda ; ‘ he will not 
harm thee. Nay, nay, dear little one, there 
is no room for fear. And I would have thee 


196 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

the kinder to him because he hath harmed 
thee, for in a while, seeing that thou mightest 
harm him and wilt not, he will grow tender 
to thee, and take shame of his own cruelty. 
And if all did thus, cruelty would cease out 
of the earth, and all men would love each 
other.’ 

The child advanced timidly, and Hanun 
heard even his light footsteps on the turf. 
Vreda bent above Wankard with her hands 
upon his shoulders, urging him forward, 
and Hanun blinking sideways, with eye- 
lids almost closed, saw the pair — the boy 
carrying a cup in his left hand, and Vreda 
looking down upon him with tranquil pleased 
affection. 

‘Hanun,’ Wankard whispered, and Hanun 
feigning to awake from a doze looked round 
upon him. The child, with a half-fright- 
ened uncertainty in his dark eyes, came 
nearer and set the draught to the old man’s 
lips. 

‘ Take it away,’ said Hanun ; ‘ I will 
none of it.’ 

‘ Hast need of it,’ said Vreda. There was 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


*97 


a dry quick beat in Hanun’s cheek and throat, 
as if inward fingers tapped there. 

‘I will none of it,’ he answered, in a feeble 
rage, and they withdrew. So the old scoffer 
and cynic lay triumpliing for a time, and the 
words Vreda had spoken repeated themselves 
in his mind. He would grow tender and take 
shame of his own cruelty ? He doubted this 
mightily, and took pride in his own stoutness, 
and the dry, quick beat in his cheek and 
throat continued, and were accompanied by a 
strange uncertainty of the breath, and a sense 
of burning tightness of the heart. There 
was no guess in his mind as to what these 
things might mean, but they pained greatly, 
and the dry old eyes began to tingle and 
prick as though thorn points touched them, 
and he saw the open lands before him, and 
the knolls of woodland, and the river, and the 
cloud-flecked afternoon sky distorted through 
a thin veil of moisture, and he was less stoutly 
set within, and would fain, if it had not been 
for the shame of the thing, have asked for the 
draught which had been proffered to him. 

By David’s orders a wattled screen had 


igS 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


been made to shelter the sick men from the 
heat when it should be too fierce for them ; 
and since at this hour the sun fell so low that 
the overhanging boughs were no longer a 
shade for Hanun, Vreda set the screen be- 
fore him. The old man closed his eyes, and 
his lashes glistened as she looked at him. 

‘ Bring the draught hither, Wankard,’ she 
said, and the child obeyed her. The patient 
took it at his hand with a surly countenance, 
and anew disposed himself for sleep. But 
when the two had withdrawn again, he lay 
for a long time staring at the wattle with the 
sunshine da:2zling in little knots here and 
there where the work was most open. 

He would grow tender and take shame of 
his own cruelty ? He knew not. He was 
Aveary, and not over strong as yet ; and truly, 
when he thought of it, a child had but small 
hope against a man who chose to maim him, 
and these folk were strangely kind. And so 
he fell asleep, not knowing the beginning of 
the change that had fallen upon him, nor as 
yet disposed to marvel at it. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


*99 


CHAPTER XHI. 

Tub town of Deva lay basking in the noonday 
summer sun. Scarcely a creature was abroad, 
and even in the Valerian Way there was 
nobody immediately visible but a water-seller 
who led his horse lazily over the baked stone 
slabs of the road, and bawled his trade-cry 
at measured intervals. The armourer, the 
manufacturer of gods, the papyrus roller, the 
fighter of beasts and men, the goldsmith, 
the keeper of dancing girls, the slavedealer, 
and the other tradesmen and purveyors who, 
until within an hour of noon, had noisily an- 
nounced their wares and invited the attention 
of the passers-by, had retired each to his stall, 
and lay snoring peacefully on its tesselated 
pavement. The white-painted houses, the 
drawn gilded lattices, the bright-coloured 
striped awnings, all dazzled together on the 


200 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


eye. The narrow deep sunk roadway lay in 
a panting airless heat, and the pictures of 
combat, revel, and trade which decorated the 
lower walls palpitated and shimmered. At 
measured intervals broad white steps rose 
from the street leading to the houses above the 
shops, and here and there upon them lay some 
haggard Briton of the Caernabians, baking 
his dirt and his ragged skin raiment in the 
sun. Half a score others, Toernobant mer- 
chants and their followers, who had travelled 
from London with their wares, had sought 
shelter from the heat under the portico of the 
Temple of Jupiter Tanarus at the corner of 
the forum. The wide doors flung open dis- 
played the quiet shadow of the interior, with 
one white marble figure showing cool as snow 
in the transparent gloom. Across the forum 
tramped a dozen soldiers of the Victorious 
Legion, driving before them a herd of British 
serfs who bore upon their shoulders skins of 
wine just disembarked from a vessel on the 
Dee, and brought from Eome for the Prefect’s 
private drinking. 

When these had passed the noonday silence 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


201 


fell deeper. Tlie water-vendor’s harsh voice and 
the sound of his horse’s hoofs died away in the 
distance, and the town was as still as a desert. 
Then came a distant fierce rumble, which 
growing nearer and nearer, took a thunderous 
noise and importance, and dashing round the 
corner of the temple into the narrow Valerian 
Way came a chariot drawn by three horses, 
and preceded by running footmen, Scythians, 
who could keep pace with a horse at a gallop. 
These came rushing down the street flourish- 
ing and cracking their whips with as great a 
show of ardour to clear the way as if they 
had been confronted by a multitude. The 
driver dragged the horses to their haunches, 
and the trimmed boulders rang beneath their 
hoofs as they struggled for a foothold. The 
runners scourged a beggar from the steps 
before which the chariot had drawn up, and 
from the vehicle itself emerged a dainty and 
polished gentleman, wrapped in softest white 
wool from head to foot, exquisitely clean 
shaven, most elegantly curled, and delicately 
buskined, and carrying a fan of scarlet 
flamingo feathers. This was the great Julius 


202 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


Varonius himself, Prefect of the Legion of the 
Victorious, and commander-in-chief of the 
Eoman forces in all West Britain. A gilded 
lattice opened, a face appeared and withdrew, 
a faint noise of hurrying feet was heard within 
the house, the doors were thrown obsequiously 
open, and Varonius entered between rows of 
bowing servants. An intendant, with many 
genuflexions, preceded him to a courtyard, 
where, stretched helplessly upon a couch be- 
neath an awning, lay Osweng, who strove to 
raise himself to do homage to the new comer. 

‘ Pardon, Illustrious,’ said Osweng, in halt- 
ing Latin. ‘I would have waited upon thee.’ 

‘ Lie quiet,’ said the Prefect, sinking to a 
seat and disposing himself at his ease. ‘ How 
earnest thou by these hurts? Was the pur- 
pose of thy mission discovered or suspected ? ’ 

‘ Not so, most Eespectable,’ returned Os- 
weng. ‘ ’Twas at a hunt of the wild bull. 
Illustrious, where I was thrown, but happily 
not gored.’ 

A servant entered with a square silver 
vessel half filled with perfumed water, and 
kneeling before Varonius stripped off his 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


203 


jewelled buskins and placed Ms feet in the 
vessel. 

‘At a hunt of the wild bull?’ said the 
Prefect with eyebrows languidly raised. 

‘ At a hunt of the wild bull, Illustrious,’ 
returned Osweng. 

‘ This is httle gallant, even for a barbarian, 
said Varonius. ‘Thy servants, whom I have 
questioned, told me that the dame was fair to 
look on. Ah ! a misapprehension ! The wild 
bull was Feltor — is that the name ? Lie no 
more to me, Osweng.’ The Lennian returned 
no answer, but lay silent in his confusion. 
‘ And so,’ pursued the Roman, daintily fanning 
himself, ‘ thy concupiscence hath drawn mat- 
ters into this unpleasant knot. Had I known 
there was a handsome woman there I had 
taken heed of that red poll of thine, and 
chosen a messenger of another colour. Tell 
me now what thou hast seen, and lie no more. 
Give me the number of their fighting men.’ 

‘ Nigh upon ten thousand. Illustrious,' 
answered Osweng. 

‘ Work for half a legion,’ said Varonius. 
* And how armed ? ’ 


204 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


‘ Mainly with spears, swords, and axes. 
Siingers they have and archers, most Eespect 
able, but of little account either for skill or 
numbers.’ 

Varonius began to question closely of 
roads, of the disposition of forces, of the num- 
ber of inhabitants of this and that village 
and township, and Osweng, thrown upon in- 
vention, stammered and halted through his 
answers, and so involved himself in contra- 
dictions, that the Prefect, who, in spite of his 
affected graces was a born general as well as 
a warrior of proved hardiness and courage, 
grew wroth with him and cut him short. 

‘ Thou hast wasted time and chance,’ he 
said, not deigning to show anger in his voice 
or manner, but delicately fanning himself, 
sniffing at a box of perfumed ointment mean- 
while, and now and again rubbing a little of 
the unguent into his palms. ‘ I had looked to 
thee to be of use, but naught pays for naught, 
and naught will pay thee for thy services.’ 

‘ One thing there is, most Kespectable,’ 
said Osweng submissively. ‘ The land is so 
divided by the new faith that the people will 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 205 

scarce grow together even to cast out a com- 
mon enemy.* 

‘The new superstition? Folly! There are 
a score or two perchance who have turned.’ 

‘ Nay, great sir, ’twas so while David the 
Nazarene was alone. But there is with him 
now a woman most wondrous for beauty and 
for power. They were burning threescore 
and fifteen to Bel upon Bel’s day when she 
came between, and with her mere word stayed 
it. And me she cured miraculously of my 
hurts, and one Hanun that was stabbed by 
the king she snatched from death by a potion 
whereof no man had heard. And the people 
are now with her, and the king giveth her 
protection, and Wenegog the Druid is against 
her, and the whole people is divided. And 
Eoedweg, a chief of the Coerleans, greatly be- 
loved and followed by the people, hath sworn 
on the woman’s side.’ 

‘Eoedweg?’ said Varonius. ‘A great 
giant of a man, fawn-coloured and grey in the 
beard ? ’ 

‘The same, great patron,’ answered Os- 


weng. 


2o6 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


‘ He was a hostage here in Deva for awhile. 
I remember him. They grow good thew and 
bone by Surfled, if he be a sample. And the 
woman ? What like is she ? ’ 

‘ I know not, most Potent,’ said Osweng, 
‘ how I should speak of her if I spoke in mine 
own tongue. And in a tongue whereto I am 
strange it is harder. She is like milk of her 
complexion, and for her eyes, they are grey 
and look strangely within a man. And for 
her stature there is nothing strange ; but for 
her movement most goodly and fine, and her 
voice very gracious and delicate ; and because 
of her voice and eyes, as I do think, hath her 
will even of her enemies.’ 

‘ Shalt be curled and barbered,’ said Varo- 
Tiitis, ‘ and set as a girl ministrant to Venus. 
The rogue but speaketh of a woman and 
straightway forgetteth the bruises his hunt 
of the wild bull hath cost him. I will 
send for this miracle, and have speech of 
her.’ 

‘ I know not. Illustrious, if it will be safe 
to send less than a legion,’ said Osweng. ‘ The 
Coerleans are fierce.’ 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


207 


* The woman and the Nazar ene are here in 
Deva,’ returned Varonius condescendingly. 

‘ In Deva ! ’ cried Osweng in astonishment. 

‘ Calm thine ardours, good Lennian,’ said 
Varonius. ‘ Even if she had taken that red 
head of thine for a beacon, she will not reach 
her guiding fire if she be half what thou hast 
painted her.’ 

‘ Permit, most Respectable, that I ask 
what she doth in Deva ? ’ 

‘ One Eumenius, a scribe, lieth ^ere dying,’ 
answered Varonius carelessly. ‘ He is of the 
new superstition, and a pervert of David’s. 
Whereby thou mayst see,’ he added with a 
touch of vanity, ‘ that little passeth without 
my knowledge, whether a faithless fool be 
tossed by a bull at Surfled, or a pretty fanatic 
visiteth an old dotard in Deva/ 

As the noonday heat passed by, Deva 
awoke httle by little, and in the evening the 
whole place was roaring and bustling with 
life. From the gardens of the Prefectorium, 
by the Augustinian Gate, along the Augus- 
tinian Way, across the forum to the Valerian 


2o8 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


Way, past the baths to the Devanian Gate, 
through that to the Dee, and back again, 
flowed two diverse and opposing tides of 
people, whilst tlie intersecting Antonine Eoad 
was as thronged as the others. Idleness and 
pleasure reigned everywhere, and two out of 
every five who thronged the streets were 
Eoman soldiers. The rough-shirted unar- 
moured recruit was here, and the bearded 
veteran in full splendour of uniform, who 
would not doff his cuirass and helmet even on 
a summer evening and when oflT duty. 

On the granite steps leading to the baths 
two Lennian bards were singing to the heed- 
less crowd of the glories of Caerlheon in the 
days of Arvireg, and in an opposite space, to 
the huge amusement of a mob of spectators, a 
Briton and a Dacian belaboured each other 
with spiked staves. In front of the Theatre 
of the Comedians of Flavius a gambler had 
set up his table, and, challenging all comers 
to try their fortune with the little golden balls, 
did a roaring trade. Above all other noises 
could be heard the tinkling sound of the 
triangles, played by the dancing-girls — now 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 209 

performing in the outer stalls, and inviting 
passing soldiers to the cosier inner courts. 

In the midst of the singing, laughing, 
quarrelling crowd Varonius walked unknown, 
accompanied by his trusted henchman, Mar- 
cus Helba. They w'ere closely shrouded in 
hoods and mantles of a dark woollen stuff, 
and, strolling slowly about the streets, ob- 
served everything without let or hindrance. 
Daylight was fading fast but was not yet 
extinct, and the lamps about the shops and 
stalls twinkled with an uncertain brightness. 
The two observers reached the gate which led 
to the Dee, and avoiding the conflicting pres- 
sure of the crowd, which the purposed dis- 
guise of their own identity made troublesome 
and occasionally more than a httle tyrannous, 
they slipped into the narrow by-street which 
lay within the fortified wall of the town. 
Here the quiet and the dusk fell with a re- 
freshing coolness, and only the sound of their 
own footsteps and the tramp and interchange 
of challenge of the sentinels upon the wall 
broke the dull murmur into which the vary- 
ing voices of the crowd had fallen. 


P 


210 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


The two walking in silence followed the 
shadowy by-street until they reached the 
watch-tower, and were challenged by the guard. 
Varonius for sole answer raised his hood, and 
passed on. The guard fell back with deep 
salutations. 

Just beyond the watch-tower the street 
widened, and by the side of a small shrine 
erected by the votaries of Mercury, the two 
came to a halt. 

‘It is here, great Prefect,’ said Helba, 
pointing to the opposite house. 

In this more open space the light fell 
clearer. There was a faint sound of move- 
ment from the courtyard of the house Helba 
had signalled, and as the two stood in silence 
the doors were thrown open, and a procession 
emerged upon the street — men and women 
marching slowly and with bent heads, by twos 
and threes. Varonius and his companion re- 
tired into the shadow of the shrine. 

‘ How was it I knew not of these num- 
bers ? ’ whispered the Prefect. ‘ I was told of 
a mere handful, and threescor-e have passed 
already.’ 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


211 


*I knew not of it. Illustrious,’ replied 
Helba. ‘ It was not so a week agone.’ 

The procession filing out of the court- 
yard was broken for an instant, and those at 
the rearward paused and turned. Then with 
muffled footsteps came six men bearing a 
dark-draped figure on a bier. Some thirty or 
forty men and women followed, and at the 
last came a man and a woman at a little dis- 
tance from the rest. Varonius clipped Helba 
by the arm. 

‘ Is that the woman ? ’ 

* Yes,’ whispered Helba. 

Vreda's eyes seemed to Varonius to search 
the shadow and to fall on his. She and the 
Saint passed on, side by side, and the proces- 
sion wound through a postern gate at no great 
distance, and when once it was clear of the 
city the silence of its mournful march was 
broken by a low chant. 

‘ This new faith makes headway fast,’ said 
Varonius, ‘ though it hath but a shabby 
allowance of deities. Didst thou note the 
woman, Helba ? That hot fool was right for 
once. She is a wonder. What a figure would 

P 2 ^ 


212 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


she make in a triumph ! I warrant that face 
liath won more converts than all the exhorta- 
tions of the grizzled old anatomy who went\ 
beside her. For thirty years these savage 
Coerleans have held us at bay, and now me- 
Ihinks the time is come. What said the 
Master Nazarene himself? “'A house divided 
against itself cannot stand.” Let but these 
dissensions work awhile, and we shall have 
them. Hark thee, Helba. There is rare hunt- 
ing out yonder. I will see for myself. Pick 
me half a score of trusty men.’ 

‘ Ten men, Illustrious ? ’ demanded Helba. 

‘ It will be desperate with so small an escort.* 

‘ As thou wilt,’ said Varonius with a smile. 

‘ Choose me twelve.’ 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


313 


CHAPTEE XIV. 

Vreda had but newly returned afoot from 
Deva, and was travel- worn. The burden of 
the flesh lay cruelly upon her, and her soul 
was heavy because of the pain and weariness 
of her body. It was yet in the heat of the 
afternoon, and the low clouds which hung 
but just above the tree-tops prisoned the air, 
and made the mere act of breathing a weari- 
ness. There was a leaden yearning at her 
heart, and her sufferings tempted her as if 
they would turn her inward hunger into a 
I’egret. But she would not have it so, and of 
set purpose she rejoiced in the pains she bore, 
since they were a part of the work she had 
chosen and not to be separated from it. But 
however she stoutened her heart— whether 
with prayers, or with the thought of the 
spreading of peace and light among her own 


ai4 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


people, or with the knowledge of the rest 
which lay before her — it still ached in fleshly 
weakness. The unclothed soul would have 
gone in pure gladness because of the blessings 
which had been granted it, but clad in the 
sorrows of the body grew subject to their 
tyrannies. 

She bethought her of the estate from 
which she was translated, and how with the 
mere thinking of it, and desiring it, her soul 
had blended with the soul of Kalyris, and she 
longed again for the refreshment of that dear 
companionship, and the earthly years which 
lay between her and its renewing stretched 
into a desert of days which seemed impassable 
to the heart. 

And slowly, as she sat with closed eyes 
and burning feet, she became aware of a 
certain gentle inward radiance which so filled 
her that there was no more room for pain or 
sorrow. Then, as it had been with her whilst 
she had been free of the body, she saw, not 
as with earthly eyes, but with the percep- 
tion of the spirit, the soul of Kalyris, grown 
amazing for beauty, and for the love which 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


215 


dwelt within it. And as the soul of Kalyris 
flashed upon the soul of Vreda she knew of 
an estate of peace most infinite, and of a glory 
beyond imagining. She knew, moreover, 
that Kalyris dwelt in that estate, and had full 
assurance that herself and many whom she 
had already persuaded, would be raised into 
it at such times as the travails of their life 
should be accomplished. 

She was never again aware of the presence 
of Kalyris in the days of her second pilgrimage, 
but the influences of this vision rested with 
her, and the bare memory of it overcame all 
pains. It had seemed to endure but for a 
moment, yet when she became again aware of 
the world the clouds had already broken in 
rain, and the sinking sun shone on freshened 
verdure from a clear expanse of sky. 

It was the voice of David that recalled her. 

‘ If thou art refreshed, daughter, we will 
go down and have speech with Hanun.’ 

Vreda arose and they set out together. 

‘ I am not willing to be moved too easily,* 
said the Saint, ‘ for I have known some who 
gave themselves up to delusions, and went 


2I6 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


astray after folly of their own devising. Yet 
I await a sign, and I have a persuasion that 
to-night it will be given me. And I know of 
a certainty that the end of my pilgrimage is 
near.’ 

They found Hanun reclining by the wall of 
his own house, half dozing in the level rays of 
the sun. He awoke at their approach, and 
answered the Saint’s salutation of ‘ Peace be 
with thee ’ with a smile. 

‘ Folk will scarce have it so,’ he said. 
‘ There is like to be little peace in Surfled for 
a while.’ 

‘ Hath aught happened newly ? ’ the Saint 
inquired. 

‘ Wenegog hath sent at great cost and 
trouble to the holy wells of Caer-Pallador,’ 
said Hanun with a quaint smile, out of which 
all the cruelty had faded. ‘ He hath sent word 
that I am to await him at close of day, and to 
be sprinkled therewith for my better recovery. 
It is brotherly meant, but strife will come of 
it.’ 

‘ Strife must be,’ answered David, ‘ but woe 
unto him by whom it cometh.’ 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


217 


‘ I say not so,’ returned Hanun, ‘ since to 
my poor thinking it cometh mainly by thee. 
I wish thee well, friend Sanctity, and have no 
grudge against thee, as how should I have ? 
I tell thee that I am well satisfied to be back 
a-looking on green trees and sunlight, and had 
never a mind for a shelf in a rock with mag- 
gots for companions.’ 

‘Wilt refuse his heathen rites?’ asked David 
eagerly. 

‘ Yea,’ said Hanun with contrasting tran- 
quillity. ‘ I will lend my face no more to Bel 
and his burnings. As for faiths I care but 
little. I have questioned of many. But 
whether it be that I am old and have gone 
cold-blooded I say not, but I have no desire to 
harm anything.’ 

‘ Art blind ? ’ asked David. His voice could 
thunder when he would, but he spoke now 
with the tender appeal of a father to a child, 
and his tones were gentle and caressing. ‘ Seest 
not that the Spirit of God is working within 
thee ? ’ 

‘I know what I know,’ said Hanun, still 
smiling, ‘ and am content. Hast changed me 


2i8 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


betwixt ye. I had as lief have been burned as 
have the king’s son touch me in kindness after 
the things I had done to him, and now the 
child’s prattle soundeth sweet in mine ears, and 
naught grieveth me save that I cannot have 
my days again.’ 

‘ The hour I have awaited ! ’ cried the Saint 
in a loud voice, suddenly. A strange lire 
burned in his eyes, and he fixed his glance 
upon Hanun, and reached out a hand above 
him. ‘ Thou knowest it not as yet, but thou 
art he that shall carry the burthen I have 
borne.’ His gaze seemed to turn inward, and 
he stood like a man in a trance. ‘ ’Twixt thee 
and me, daughter, there shall be no farewells, 
for the time of our parting is no more than as a 
drop to yonder river to the time of companion- 
ship that awaiteth us. I shall not see to- 
morrow’s sun.’ 

‘ Man ! ’ cried Hanun, struggling feebly to 
his feet. ‘ How knowest thou that ? ’ 

‘I know it of a surety,’ David answered 
with a great calm. ‘ It hath been given to 
many to know the hour of their release. Paul, 
my master, who laid hands upon me in Antioch, 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


2IS 


spoke of the hour of his departure thirty 
and three days before it ; and Peter, of holy 
memory, spake even of the manner of his 
death, knowing that he should be crucified 
head downwards.’ 

Hanun sank back upon his couch, and 
Vreda, with a gesture altogether womanly, 
laid both hands upon the Saint’s shoulders, and 
looked up into his face with an angelic sweet- 
ness of affection. The old man’s softened and 
exalted countenance glowed in the rays of the 
sinking sun. 

‘Years seventy and two have passed,’ he 
said, ‘ since these old ears heard the noise of 
hosannahs in Jerusalem. I shall hear them 
again, but with no earthly ears.’ He stooped 
and laid both hands upon Hanun’s head. ‘ Thou 
art called and chosen. The change is not yet, 
but God hath His own time.’ 

He turned away with no further word, 
wrapping his robe about him, and Vreda 
walked with him. Even as they turned, Wene- 
gog, with a great priestly following, rounded 
a wooded knoll, and strode towards them, dark 
against the illuminated pallor of the Avestcrn 


220 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


sky. The Saint turned a solemn glance upon 
him, and spoke in passing : 

‘ Peace be with thee.’ 

‘ I had rather the pest than thy blessing,’ 
the Arch-Druid answered. His followers drew 
their robes aside with looks of hate and scorn, 
and the combatants parted to meet no more. 

David led the way towards his own abiding 
place, and had reached deep into the wood 
before he spoke again. 

‘ Daughter, here we part.’ 

He stood still, and Vreda clung to him 
with tears, seeing her own loneliness before 
her. 

‘ Nay,’ he said, ‘ rather rejoice with me 
that the hours of my tribulation are at an end.’ 

And with that they also parted. 

Wenegog striding home alone with black 
rage at his heart, cursing Hanun for his apos- 
tasy, heard behind him in the sacred grove the 
hurried halting step and quickened breath- 
ing which had arrested him at the same spot 
a month before. The ghastly creature was 
here again, knife in hand. 


ONE TRAVELLER RJ. TURNS 


221 


* What now ? ’ asked ''^'^negog. 

‘ It is done,’ the other panted. 

‘With this ?’ said Wenegog, pointing at 
the knife. 

‘ None escape from it, and 1 struck deep.’ 

‘ Give it to me.’ 

The man offered it, holding it gingerly by 
the haft as if he dreaded it. Wenegog accepted 
it, and moved a pace nearer. 

‘ None escape from it ? ’ he said, scrutinising 
the blade in the dim light. 

‘ None, master, none.’ 

The Arch-Druid struck swift and deep, 
and the man fell without a groan. 

‘ Wilt tell no tales,’ said Wenegog, looking 
darkly down. He threw the knife into the 
underbrush and walked away. 


22a 


ONE TRAVELIER RETURNS 


CHAPTEK XV. 

Hanun lay pondering that night in his own 
house alone. His subtle mind threaded 
hither and thither in a maze of thought, and 
he was eager to find his way through his 
own imaginings. He had doubted everything, 
and the beginning of faith in him brought 
with it something of the shock a candid and 
open soul receives when suspicion is first 
thrust upon it. The light of the earthenware 
lamp flickered, and the roof of tlie room was 
alternately ruddy and invisible. He had an 
eye for this as he threaded his own inner- 
most mazes, and he likened the swift flicker 
of his mind to it. So intermittently he saw 
and did not see. Then the lamp went out, 
and he lay in darkness, and in the same 
instant of time the doubts vanished and his 
mind seemed clothed in light. Whatever 


ONE TRAVEL/.Ej< returns 


223 


impulse of heat, or auger, or haste, or fleshly 
appetite, or spiritual hope had arisen within 
him any time this forty years he had smiled 
and sneered it into quiet. His infidelity had 
reached to the roots of his soul and the fibres 
of his flesh. He had doubted and derided 
his own passions, and tliat twilight devil of 
incertitude who blends the white of truth 
and the black of falsehood to one lying grey, 
had been his lifelong comrade. But now 
the broad light broke about him, clear, un- 
da zzding, and would not be derided or denied. 
He knew — once and for ever. 

He arose and stepped into the void of 
night with no feeling of his recent weakness. 
The broad sky throbbed with stars, and the 
silence buzzed in his ears. He walked for 
a long time not noting whither his footsteps 
led him, until the sound of voices recalled 
him to himself. Then he remembered that 
the morrow was the day of Hest, the Warder 
of the Seasons, and looking to the stars he 
saw that it was near midnight. A voice 
challenged him, and he answered ‘It is I, 
Hanufl,’ and then stood still. 


224 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


Thirteen of the priests of Hest, naked in 
the starlight, were grouped about a squared 
stone on which was set a globe-shaped jar 
of baked clay. The onlooker knew the 
ritual, and his eyes recognised details which 
the dimness would have hidden from one 
less familiar. He knew the great hammer 
of granite and its crooked haft of ash. He 
knew the stone of offering, and could even 
fancy that he traced the line of the delicate 
thong which two nude priests held tightly 
strained on high, exactly over the eastern 
corner and the western corner of the stone. 
He saw a third kneeling beneath the line 
with his faced turned upward and his hands 
upon the stone. 

Then the kneeling man spoke. 

‘ The star draws near.’ Then again after 
a pause : ‘ Praises to Hest that the promise is 
fair. The line shakes not and the skies are 
clear.’ Then again after a pause : ‘ It is the 
hour.’ 

One, bent and bearded, laid both hands 
upon the shaft of the hammer and essayed to 
lift it. He failed, and having spat upon his 


ONE TRAVEL/- EE RETURNS 225 

hands essayed again and failed a second time, 
though he strained his old joints at the effort 
and quivered from head to foot. 

‘ The day of my ministry is over,’ he 
said, in an aged voice. ‘Come hither, Ux- 
haemhu, that shall be keeper of the hammer. 
Know, Uxhaemhu, that I, Soerundeg, took 
the hammer from the hand of Craef, the wolf- 
toothed, who took it from the hand of Duwon- 
gar, slayer of the southrons, who took it 
from the hand of Pawr, the white-eyed, who 
named the names of three that had gone 
before him, and the name of Horw, who had 
it at the beginning — the great Salaekin, the 
sweet to the gods, the wrapped in the holy 
savour of tortures. Know also, that thou 
mayest tell it to him that followeth after 
thee, that it hath thus been ever for the glory 
of Hest, and the ripening of the fruits of the 
earth. That the jar shall be filled with the 
blood of a youth and a maid. That it shall 
rest on the stone that Hest set up, and be 
broken with the hammer that Hest gave unto 
Horw. That the rite hath not changed from 
the beginning until now, and shall not change 

Q 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


for ever. That they who perform it shall be 
naked, waiting for the blessing of Hest, as 
were their forefathers, ere Hest had given 
them anything, whether of flax, or hide, or 
wool. These things shalt thou speak to him 
that follows after thee, that the memory of 
them may live in the earth, and that the 
wrath of Hest may be appeased.’ 

The man who knelt at the stone watched 
the thong which trembled above him, tightly 
strung, and all awaited his word. 

‘ The star of Hest,’ he said after a pause, 
‘ is over the stone of Hest. Strike ! ’ 

The youthful priest to whom the hammer 
had been entrusted swung the cumbrous im- 
plement high, and, allowing it to fall, crashed 
the jar into a thousand fragments. The blood 
the vessel had contained splashed wide, and 
spotted Hanun’s face and raiment as he stood 
apart. A cry arose, for the helve of the 
hammer had broken, and the rough stone 
head of it, spinning with the force of the 
blow, had struck one of the nude watchers 
and had felled him to the ground. There 
was an end of the invocation, and one of 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


227 


the priests cried out upon Hanun asking 
what should be done and what the omen 
might mean. 

Hanun was silent, looking upon the waste 
and desolate places of his own spirit. It was 
as if a whirlwind raged in the desert : all 
was dark, confused, tormented, till a voice 
sounded within him like a clarion. 

‘ The hammer of Hest is broken, and the 
reign of blood is over ! ’ 

He himself had spoken the words with a 
great cry, and they rang upon tlie ears of his 
body and his soul. The blood upon his face 
and hands stung like fire, and filled him with 
a nameless horror and repulsion. His heart 
had been knit through with cruelty and the 
lust of blood, and his recoil from them was 
like a rending of the fiesh. The savour 
which had been sweetest to him was bitterer 
than wormwood, and the passion of his pro- 
test against himself that had been was like a 
convulsion. 

The naked celebrants of the libation to 
Hest stared upon another in the dim starhght, 
terrified by the omen and the cry which gav^^ 


228 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


to it a significance so awful. Hanun turned 
away and left them to their consternation. 

He was alone in the midst of the spaces 
of his soul. The storm raged there no more, 
and past the cloudy wrack the star of Peace 
gleamed with a steadfast lustre. And a new 
heart grew within him, like a little child’s for 
softness, and like a warrior’s for courage, and 
he remembered the words of David — 

‘ Thou art he that shall carry the burthen 
I have borne.’ 

Then and there he cast himself upon his 
face in an ecstasy, and took the charge laid 
upon him, and set his past behind him for 
ever and his purpose before him for ever. 
And as he moved to arise, filled with the 
sublime and simple faith and surety of old 
days, he was aware that his hands lay upon 
the breast of the dead saint, his forerunner and 
his father in the faith. He recalled David’s 
prediction : ‘ I shall not see to-morrow’s sun,’ 
and he saw that it was fulfilled. 

The hermit priest of Bel had struck true 
to the heart, and the poison of his blade 
had had no time to How through the victim’s 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


229 


veins. So the dead man lay with undisturbed 
form and face, as if gazing fixedly towards 
the new abode to which his valorous soul had 
flown. Hanun knelt beside him, and gazed 
long and earnestly at his face, peering close 
to it, reading the dead man’s rest and peace. 

‘Thou knowest more than I,’ he said at 
last, and indeed there shone in the dead 
man’s eyes a very strange and awful look of 
knowledge of things hidden from the living. 

When Vreda had listened to the last words 
of David, she moved away with inward heavi- 
ness and went to her own place. She had 
found a natural bower by the river-side, 
where a weeping willow made a dome of 
green dense enough to afford shelter alike 
from the heat of the sun and the dews of the 
night. She slept well guarded here, for night 
after night those who were drawn by the 
stories of the wonders of her presence, and 
those who came in the faith that she could 
heal their diseases, lay down about her 
abiding place to await her earliest issuing 
forth. --- 


230 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


She passed now through the patient 
throng, women holding out their children to 
be blessed, and sufferers from many maladies 
crowding humbly to be touched for healing. 
Many, secretly touching her robe, had be- 
lieved themselves cured and had spread 
abroad the report of her, so that nightly the 
crowd increased in numbers. But none 
dared to approach her resting place too near, 
and when she was weary of moving amongst 
them she could always withdraw to the soli- 
tude of her own leafy chamber and the 
privacy of her own thoughts. The kind 
hands healed many pains ; the grave voice, 
celestial sweet, soothed many griefs ; the new 
wisdom of the creed of pity and forgiveness 
sank deep into many hearts wild, untutored, 
and stony, and lived there like well-springs 
in a desert. 

She was weary in body and heart, but 
none went without the blessing or the counsel 
craved, and at last she was free to rest. She 
lay down upon a couch of heather to await 
what might happen, her mind expectant of 
intelligence. She was like one who sits in a 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS aji 

darkened chamber attending the coming of a 
lamp. There was no sorrow in her mind 
now because of her parting from David, but 
more and more a surety of an increased close- 
ness of companionship. On a sudden the 
illumination she looked for came. It began 
with a warmth and sweetness of contentment 
the like of which she had not known, and 
she was aware of the immortal essence of her 
friend, himself, and not another, recognisable 
as a famUiar face. There was no voice or 
touch, but the clothed spirit and the un- 
clothed were together in a most dear and 
intimate communion, and Vreda was aware 
of a happiness and a glory not to be de- 
scribed by man. 

Then, filled with a tranquil and sacred 
joy, she arose, and choosing by name six 
from amongst those who slept near her abiding 
place, she led them to where the body of 
David lay. 


232 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


CHAPTEE XVL 

In the early forenoon the great hall of the 
palace was cleared for judgment. A heavy 
stone chair of great antiquity was painfully 
moved in on rollers by a score of men, and 
set near the northern wall. All implements 
of everyday use were cleared away, and at 
the appointed time the king, followed by his 
chiefs and counsellors, entered and took his 
seat, to hear petitions, to adjust disputes, and 
to ordain the punishment of criminals. 
Barxelhold sat by his side on a seat lower 
than his own, and the chiefs were grouped on 
rough oak benches on either hand. Those of 
greatest age sat nearest to the king, bald and 
furrowed and snowy-bearded ; and on a block 
of granite, polished by many centuries of 
handling, which was set at Feltor’s feet, were 
laid the golden sickle (its haft thickly en- 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


233 


crusted with black and grey British pearls) and 
the royal axe of flint, in token of the king’s 
mastership over life and death. Without the 
hall, and apart from the rest of the soldiery, 
stood three men beside a block of oak. One 
of them bore a battle-axe, ready, if need were, 
to carry out the edict of the king. 

An aged counsellor, standing behind the 
king’s chair, spoke at a signal from Feltor’s 
hand : ‘ The king sits in judgment.’ A 

chieftain waiting at the open door repeated 
the words, and voice after voice took up the 
phrase outside until it melted into distance. 
Complainants and petitioners besieged the 
door, and were one by one admitted by the 
guard. 

But one case had been heard when Hanun 
presented himself and demanded audience. 
He had laid aside the white robe of office, 
with its scarlet band of dignity, and came 
bare-headed and bare-footed, and attired in 
such a mantle of coarse wool as David had 
worn. The change in his face since last he 
had set foot upon that ground was yet more 
astonishing than the change in his attire. 


234 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


The suave malignity had gone out of it, and 
it was alight with fervour and sincerity. He 
strode along the hall unrecognised for a 
moment, and stood before the king. 

‘ Who art thou ? ’ Feltor demanded, 
though even as his lips shaped the words he 
knew him. 

‘ Hanun,’ came the answer ; ‘ the son of 
Soel, and youngest and least worthy of the 
servants of the Eedeemer.’ 

Since Eel’s day many conversions had been 
known ; the king himself was tacitly a Christian ; 
Barxelhold wavered between two opinions, 
and but for the fact that she recoiled from 
publicly opposing her own father, would have 
decided ; Eoedweg and all his house had 
openly embraced the faith, and many of the 
chieftains had followed his example. But 
until now the new creed had met with the 
deadly and passionate hostility of the priest- 
hood ; and Hanun’s speech so astounded all 
who heard it that the king and queen and 
the assembled counsellors rose in wonder. 

‘ Thou ? ’ cried Feltor. ‘ Thou — the Priest 
of the Terrors ? ’ 


'ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


235 


* Tea, king,’ ansAvered Hanun. ‘ Even I. 
These hands, foul with the blood of unholy 
sacrifice, are cleansed. I, unworthy, am 
called and chosen, and though it/ lead me 
to the scourge, the block, or the fire, I 
take the road by Avhich God leads me, and 
bear the burthen my dead master hath laid 
down.’ 

‘ Thy dead master ! ’ 

‘ Yea,’ said Hanun. ‘ David is dead.* 

‘ Dead .? ’ cried Feltor, gazing about him as 
if to seek for a denial of the news. There 
was a profound and anxious silence. ‘ How ? ’ 
the king demanded. 

‘ He was slain last night,’ Hanun answered. 
‘ But a little while earlier he foretold his death, 
though not the manner of it.’ 

The king’s eyes rested on Hanun with 
a swift suspicion. What if he were the 
murderer, and his conversion a pretence 
to hide the truth and save himself from 
vengeance ! The thought stayed but an in- 
stant, and Feltor glared about him in kingly 
wrath. 

‘ It shall go ill,’ he said, ‘ with him that 


236 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

hath done this. Said I not that whosoever 
should touch the man to his hurt should 
die.?’ 

As he spoke the guard at the door divided 
and made way for the entrance of Wenegog, 
who, followed by a long and imposing pro- 
cession of priests, walked solemnly into the 
hall and faced the seat of judgment. He and 
his followers were in the full priestly panoply 
which was only assumed on occasions of high 
ceremonial. 

At Wenegog’s entrance Barxelhold turned 
and gripped Feltor by the arm. Her husband 
looked down upon her and saw both fear and 
appeal in her eyes. 

‘ Thinkest thou so? he said grimly. ‘1 
also.’ Then he kept silence until Wenegog 
stood before him, with his priestly forces 
marshalled in the rear. ‘ What would ’st thou 
here ? ’ he asked. 

Wenegog drew himself to his height, and 
stretched out a trembling hand. His face 
was white like wax, and his eyes had grown 
cavernous. 

‘ I, Wenegog, voice of Odan and Bel, after 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS «37 

fasting and and woundr snade of mine 

own hands in prayer, warn thee with this last 
warning. Bel is wroth with hunger, and his 
inwards are like a heated furnace of brass. 
He roareth for his due, which hath so long 
been denied him.’ 

‘And shall be denied him for ever,’ cried 
Feltor. He trembled, half with rage against 
Wenegog and half with the last remnant of 
a superstitious fear. He had longed often 
of late to break from the ghastly bonds of 
the creed in which he had been cradled, and 
that lingering fear had alone withheld him. 
Now that the words had been spoken he 
waited with one icy pang of fear to see what 
would befall him. Then the despised deity 
taking no vengeance he gathered courage. 

‘ Cram Bel’s maw with the men of thine own 
bloodthirsty craft, if thou wilt! I am sick of 
thy burnings and slayings, and so long aS the 
king’s word goes through the land there shall 
be an end of hem.’ 

Wenegog fixed his eyes upon Felt or ’s, and 
held them there unwinkingly. 

* Moei wen,’ he called. ‘ Come hither.* 


838 ONE TR'^ VELLER RETURNS 

He waited, staring at the king, with his 
right hand outstretched, and there fell such a 
silence on the place that the bare feet of the 
priest who obeyed the Arch-Druid’s call were 
heard clearly on the earthen floor, and the 
rustle of his raiment as he moved. The 
priest paused at his master’s side, and held 
out towards him a delicate phial of crystal. 
Wenegog’s hand felt bhndly for it, and still he 
kept his eyes on Deltor’s. His long fingers 
touched the phial and gripped it, and, raising 
it high, he reversed it and poured its contents 
on the ground. The king held his place, but 
his countenance changed and he was red and 
pale by turns. His broad chest heaved with 
a convulsive labour. 

‘ The gods waste thy life,’ said Wenegog, 
‘ as I waste this ! ’ 

He let fall the phial, which crashed into a 
hundred glittering fragments, and dropped his 
hand slowly to his side. 

Hanun had stood, unobserved by his old 
master, a little to the rear. His mean garb 
had disguised him so far that though he was 
recognised by many of his old comrades, 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


839 


Wenegog had not even glanced at him. lie 
came forward now and spoke : — 

‘ Have no fear. His curse is waste, like 
the water he has wasted. His word leaveth 
less trace than the wind.’ 

‘ By the gods,’ said Wenegog, turning upon 
him in amazement, ‘ ’tis Hauun ! ’ 

There was the beginning of a stir in the 
hall, and at a single gesture from Feltor’s 
hand it broke into a Avild commotion. The 
king’s defiance of the Arch-Druid, and the 
solemn anathema by which Wenegog had 
replied, and — heaped on these — Hanun’s 
challenge of the curse, had brought the blood 
of the listeners and onlookers to fever heat. 
Feltor choked with rage, and could do no 
more than thrust a commanding hand towards 
Wenegog at the instant when Eoedweg’s eye 
encountered his own. 

Eoedweg strode from his place, and the 
Druids grouped themselves about their head 
to oppose him. The SAvords of the armed 
men were out on every side, and there was 
the flash of steel among the ranks of the 
priests also, but at the mere sight of the grim 


240 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


resolute face of Eoedweg, and the long sT^ord 
he bore, the Druids faltered. He went 
straight on, disdainful of them, shouldering 
right and left, not deigning to look as if he 
so much as dreamed of their resistance. But 
one more daring or more faithful than the rest 
faced him and struck out. Eoedweg felled him 
with a tremendous buffet from the iron hilt of 
his sword, and the trenchant blade, whistling 
right and left, cleared a space about him. 
The chieftains and the guard cast themselves 
upon the circle, and in the turn of a hand the 
crowd of priests was disarmed. Eoedweg, seiz- 
ing Wenegog by the nape of the neck, forced 
him to the foot of the judgment seat, and there 
thrust him upon his knees before the king. 

‘ Wilt curse the king?’ said Feltor hoarsely. 
* Seest whither thy power hath gone, W enegog ? ’ 

Barxelhold threw herself between him and 
the kneeling figure of her father, and clung to 
Feltor by the wrists. 

‘ Be not afraid ! * he said. ‘ I will not 
harm him. Stand aside. Thy fangs are 
broken, old adder I Let him rise, Eoedweg.’ 

Wenegog, released, arose, shaking from 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 241 

head to foot with anger and feebleness of 
body. His robe was torn, and spotted here 
and there with blood, for he had knelt upon 
the fragments of the broken phial. He stood 
undaunted, and there was more of majesty in 
his look than in Feltor’s. 

‘ I have spoken to thee already,’ he said, 
and turned away. ‘ For the rest of ye, take 
refuge beneath your mushroom faith if ye 
will. Call on the scourged outcast of the 
Nazarenes, and the voice of Odan shall 
answer. Yet not of mine accord wiU I leave 
ye to doom. Is Odan of yesterday? See 
ye the very axe that lieth before the chair 
of judgment? Seven score and nine are the 
generations of the kings and queens in 
Coerlea since Coer, the son of Odan, gave 
the axe to Leng, the father of kings, and the 
Coerleans became a people. Where is the 
faith of old days? The men that went 
, before ye raised a grove to Odan, and nine 
generations died ere the oaks were grown. 
Was it yesterday that Moedek, the son of 
j Bel, built the ring of the gods and the ring of 
iife about the ring of sacrifice? Hay, but ye 


242 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


know that no man can remember a tale of 
the time when the rings were not. For mine 
own part I am old, and ere long shall I 
meet them that have gone before into Eean- 
hola. When the hour cometh I can stand 
before them without shame, for I have 
spoken.’ 

He swept his robe about him, and glanc- 
ing at Hanun with a smile of unutterable 
disdain, made a step towards the doorway. 

‘ Stay ! ’ said Feltor. ‘ I have yet a word 
for thee. What of David ? ’ 

Wenegog paused, turned his head, and 
smiled upon the king. Then lie moved on 
again, but Eoedweg’s heavy hand arrested 
him. 

* What know I of David ? ’ he asked. 

‘ David is slain,’ said Feltor ; ‘ and I 
demand a reckoning for his blood at thy 
hands.’ 

‘Why at my hands ?’ asked Wenegog, 
turning back upon the king. 

‘Wert his enemy,’ returned Feltor, ‘and 
hast command of thine own men ! I will 
have thee reckon for his blood.’ 


ONE TRAi'ELLER RETURNS 


243 


* Show me mine accuser said the Druid, 
looking haughtily about him. 

‘ Hanun,’ said Feltor ; ‘ tell what is known 
to thee, and no more.’ 

‘ Hanun ? ’ cried Wenegog mockingly. 
‘ The carrion crow bethinketh him that he will 
feed no more on the offal the eagle leaveth. 
Come not too nigh, though thou thinkest the 
eagle stricken. There is yet a grip in the 
talons.’ 

‘ Have done with this,’ Feltor exclaimed 
stormily, ‘ Speak, Hanun, I command 
thee.’ 

‘ I am aweary,’ said Wenegog. ‘ I tell 
thee, Feltor, I know naught of David, tod 
care naught. And if he be slain I grieve not 
nor rejoice.’ 

A voice spoke beside him ; 

‘ Lie not to the king.’ 

He turned and faced Vreda. In his every 
encounter with her he had been confounded, 
and from the moment when he had first beheld 
her his poAver had begun to slip from his 
hands. He held now the last rag and rem- 
nant of it, but the very fact of her presence 


244 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


inspired him to cling to it with a more des- 
perate teniccity. 

‘ What can she know ? ’ he asked him- 
self. 

‘ All,’ she answered him aloud. The word 
was an enigma to those who stood about them, 
but Wenegog staggered as though a hand, had 
itfuck him. ‘ Thine innermost heart ! ’ 

His mind flashed to the sacred grove and 
the meeting with the hermit-priest of Bel. 
She set in words the picture that he saw. 

‘ Night in the grove, and the loathly thing 
that tempteth thee. “ Wilt have thy will ? ” 
“ Who will not when he may ? Thou know’est 
the man ? ” “ Ay ! David the Blasphemer. 

Speak the word.” “ The word is spoken.” ’ 

Even to the listeners the accusation was 
clear, and when Vreda ceased to speak a pro- 
digious weight of silence seemed to fall. To 
Wenegog the voice was a living echo to his 
thought, and to be thus translated unloosed 
his joints with fear. That the tale she hinted 
should be merely true was nothing. He could 
have faced it with a lie. But that she should 
touch his very fancy and speak the words 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 245 

that rang in his own brain chilled his blood, 
and unhinged his wits with horror. 

‘ What can a lie avail ? ’ she asked. The 
next scene darted into the light cast by the 
circle of his thoughts, and stood there, horri- 
bly defined. The voice of the ghastly crea- 
ture spoke, and his own voice answered k. 
The living voice still tracked the inward tones, 
and still translated them. 

‘ The grove, and the loathly thing again. 
“None escape from it, and I struck deep.” 
“ None escape from it ? ” ’ 

‘The body wdl betray me,’ thought Wene- 

gog- 

‘ Yea,’ she answered. ‘ His body will be- 
tray thee, though thou saidest he would tell 
no tales.’ 

Wenegog fell upon his knees with a cry. 
His veined hands writhed in the air. 

‘ Mother of the gods ! Most holy There 
protect me. It is thy daughter.’ 

‘ Nay,’ she said, ‘I am no daughter of 
There.’ 

‘ I am slain already,’ he thought. ‘ To 
what tortures will Feltor set me ? My powers 


246 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

are broken, and I am a mockery to them that 
served me.’ 

‘Perchance it may yet be well for thee 
that thou should’st become a mockery,’ she 
answered, for his thoughts were like spoken 
words to her. ‘ Yet Feltor will set thee to no 
tortures.’ 

With such an abject surrender of all hope 
and courage as men know in dreams he rose 
and fled from her with groping hands and 
staggering feet. No man dared to arrest him. 
There was that in his face which would have 
made a passage through an army. Yet when 
those who remained behind were free of the 
horror of his eyes the silence gave way to 
tumult, and half the crowd would have poured • 
headlong after him but for Vreda’s restraining 
hand. She did but raise it and. the tumult 
sank again. 

‘ Are not his thoughts his chastisement ? ’ 
Iler voice calmed all anger and revenge. 

‘ Let him go.’ 

A sense of triumph swelled in Hanun’s 
heart. His repentance for the past was a part 
of him, and he knew that it must be so until 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS \ 247 

the day lylien he should die, but it had grown 
into a power which drove him forward. Fu-ed 
by faith and scourged by memory as he was, 
and changed in heart, he kept his old powers, 
his keenness of perception, his adroitness, and 
his promptitude. He saw that now was the 
hour in which to strike a final and a fatal 
blow at that pitiless creed which he had him- 
self so long uphold. 

‘ Let no man seek for vengeance,’ he cried 
aloud. ‘ Let there be no more blood-shedding 
nor torture. But one thing would I pray of 
the king to do, in memory of Ms own mercy. 
Let the figure of Bel threaten the land no 
more. Let it be given to these hands, which 
have been swift to shed the blood of the inno- 
cent, to pull down the terror that casteth its 
cold shadow on the hearts of men.’ 

‘ Be it so,’ Feltor answered. ‘ Burn it with 
fire, and let a plough be passed over the place 
whereon it standeth.* He turned to Vreda 
and knelt before her. * Since thy coming there 
hath been gladness where sorrow went before. 
Thy voice hath brought joy, and thy presence 
is a healing of strife. Whence thou comest 


848 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

I know not, but I know that whither thou 
leadest no harm can come to any. Thy faith 
ehall be my faith. I will praise the one God 
and none other, and they who love their king 
will follow me. Speak, and that which thou 
commandest we will do.’ 

‘ Do as thou hast said, Feltor,’ she an- 
swered him. ‘ Tear down the figure of Bel 
and the stones about it, that it may be a sign 
to all men that the days of blood are over.’ 

Feltor sprang to his feet and cried with a 
loud voice : 

‘ Follow me ! * 


As the evening shadows gathered the fire 
glowed under the huge misshapen wicker 
figure, and the flames leapt in and out among 
the twisted withes. For the first time since 
the mock-human thing had burned no cry of 
victims mingled with the crackling noise of 
the fire. The inner circle swarmed with men, 
women, and children, and at the foot of every 
stone men with implements of every kind, 
chosen at random, slaved to destroy and 
level the symbols of their former faith. They 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


249 


were more zealous in the flush of the new faith 
than ever they had been for the old. There 
needed but one voice of authority to be raised 
and all were ready in defiance of the creed 
which had slain and tortured time out of 
mind. 

The fire flamed out and the dreadful sym- 
bol sank in ashes, but the fire of fervour 
burned all night and for many a day and 
night thereafter. Stone after stone was 
levelled, and many were broken. Those of 
the centre circle were dislodged and set up in 
a heap over the ploughed circle of fire, and 
in their midst, on the thirty-second day from 
the beginning of the work, a gigantic cross 
was raised. 

On that thirty-second day Hanun held 
solemn service ; and to the gathered thousands 
streaming homewards the final image of the 
night was that of the symbol of peace and 
pardon, seen afar against the sunset bright- 
ness of the sky. 


250 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


CHAPTER XYH. 

The evening sun was shining, and a soft fine 
rain was falling, and a rainbow rising from 
tlie green of the far-off hills sprang to the 
height of its arch and there broke on skyey 
blue and fleecy cloud. A solitary personage, 
habited in the British fashion, with the thong- 
tied loose skin leggings of the Caernabians, 
climbed an eminence, and from its summit 
looked about him over a broad and beautiful 
expanse of country. He shaded his eyes with 
a delicate hand, well trimmed and fine, and 
turned him about slowly, scanning the land- 
scape on every side. 

‘ A goodly land,’ he said half aloud, ‘ but 
no joy to be lost in it, and never a sign of a 
road. If yonder river should be navigable — 
a river must needs lead somewhere— and a 
raft is easily made.’ 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


251 


He spoke in Latin, and his whole aspect 
belied his attire ; his beard of but a month’s 
growth curling jet black and close about his 
mouth, cheeks, and chin, his large southern 
eyes, and the olive tint of his complexion. 
When he had stood awhile to look about him 
he moved towards the further base of the hill, 
forcing his way through dense undergrowth 
and many thickets of briars. The descent in 
places was precipitous, and he was more than 
once compelled to use as a staff the short 
spear he carried. Coming at length to the 
edge of the stream he looked down upon a 
rocky bed strewn with boulders and clear 
shining round pebbles, parti-coloured like an 
intricate mosaic. The bank on which he 
stood was high and sheer, but on the other 
side a grassy lawn, dotted with clumps of 
willow, and ridged with beds of alder and osier, 
sloped to the stream. The fine rain had 
already ceased to fall, and the rainbow in the 
east had faded from the sky, but stiU planted 
a prismatic transparent buttress upon the hill 
from which it had seemed to spring. 

As he stood leaning over the edge of the 


2S‘i ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

bank, clinging to the trunk of a young ash, 
and thrusting half his body out of thick bos- 
cage, he became aware of voices, and retired 
with scarce a rustle. The voices were softly 
bright, and beyond a doubt feminine. They 
came nearer, speaking in a language which 
he followed with difficulty, and for a mere 
instant he caught a glimpse of two girls of 
lofty stature and much freedom and grace of 
movement, who passed a break in one of the 
osier beds. Then he lost sight of them, and 
the voices became stationary. The listener 
could catch here and there the meaning of a 
phrase of their speech, which differed chiefly 
in accent from that dialect of the Caemabians 
with which he was familiar. By-and-bye they 
emerged from their shelter with shrill laugh- 
ters, and he, peering out again from his 
hiding-place, saw them enter the stream at a 
still deep reach below the boulders. For a 
minute or more they beat the water against 
each other with their hands, with voluble 
chatter and shriekings, and then one plunging 
into the middle of the stream the other fol- 
lowed, and they glanced hither and thither 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


253 


like a brace of nereids. From the foot to the 
knee, and from the shoulder to the finger-tip 
these water maidens were nut-brown with the 
free play of sun and wind, but their supple 
bodies flashed white and rosy under the. wave. 
As they swam about the still pool their 
reddish-yellow hair trailed loose behind, 
swayiijg into wreaths as they turned, and no 
sculptor ever caught and perpetuated poses 
of more natural grace than they displayed at 
every motion and at every instant of transi- 
tion. 

The onlooker drew cautiously nearer to 
the edge, and surrendered his hold upon the 
slim trunk which had hitherto supported him. 
He was unaware of the treacherous nature of 
the ground he stood on, and before he had 
even time to be surprised he had fallen into a 
deep well-hke pool in company with a cubic 
yard of earth or thereabouts. The maidens, 
startled by the splash, looked for its cause, 
and by-and-bye saw a pair of struggling arms, 
and then a bare head with close cropped 
hair, black as night, and gleaming like an 
otter's. They made, one sv/ift stroke for the 


254 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


shore, and fled to their first shelter with 
clamorous shrillings which betokened more 
amusement than fear. 

The unwilling intruder, unable to make 
way out of the well by any other means, 
climbed upon one of the great boulders and 
surveyed the height from which he had fallen. 
To climb back was clearly impossible, a#d so 
after fishing out his dripping head-dress and 
the spear which floated blade downwards 
within easy reach, he half swam, half waded, 
to the further side. A burst of laughter 
warned him of the whereabouts of the girls. 
He skirted a bunch of pollards and came in 
sight of them, finding them already robed 
each in a single girth of soft white wool, 
reaching from the shoulder to the knee. 
They stood side by side, laughing frankly, 
and writhing the water from their auburn 
hair. He had prepared his riiost pohshed 
phrases of reassurance, but the damsels were 
so assured already that he had no need 
for the employment of his inventions. So 
they stood regarding each other, he smiling, 
and the girls laughing with an air which be- 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


25S 


gan to take something of a hoydenish coquetry 
to his eyes. 

‘I trust, fair dames,’ he said, vainly striv- 
ing to force his southern tongue to the rugged 
fashion of the language of the Caernabians, 
‘ that I am no cause of fear unto you.’ 

At this they opened their blue eyes and 
laughed afresh, and said one to the other, 

‘ He hath made no gain of fairness for his 
washing.’ 

He did not quite catch the meaning of 
the words, but he guessed that it was not 
altogether complimentary, and since it had 
happened in his day that many great ladies 
of many lands had been mightily impressed 
by his graces, and that more than one poet of 
Rome had sung of his conquering of hearts, 
he was a little piqued by the reception these 
rustic barbarian beauties offered him. But 
he was far too fine a gentleman to permit his 
pique to show itself, and far too used to con- 
quest to be greatly disconcerted. 

‘ Your mockeries make you the pleasanter 
to look upon,’ he said in his soft Roman 
accent, ‘ and I rejoice to have chanced upon 


2s6 one traveller returns 

ladies so beautiful. Will it please you tell 
me where lieth Surfled?’ One of the girls 
stretched out a noble brown arm and pointed. 
‘ Ay,’ he said, ‘ and where Caerwen ? ’ She 
pointed again, ‘ Ay. And yonder Caerl- 
heon ? ’ 

She assented by a movement of the head. 

‘I am a huntsman that hath lost his way,’ 
he went on with a courtly smoothness, in 
no manner abated by the difficulties of the 
strange tongue he spoke. ‘ And I have not 
only lost my way, but my people. One thing 
I have found — a most strong hunger ; and if 
ye be not the goddesses of this stream, as by 
your beauty ye well might be, but mortal 
like myself, I pray ye guide me where I may 
find food, or point me the way that I shall 
go.’ 

Now the water maidens had grown from 
infancy to full womanhood in a land where 
even lovers spoke but little in compliment, 
and they found the southern method by no 
means displeasing. The stranger was hand- 
some, and despite the smoothness of his 
tongue, had a valiant and manly air. So the 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 257 

damsels laughed less broadly, and fell into 
something of a pleasing confusion at the 
assured confidence of this polished personage 

‘ Aelfa,’ said one of them to the other, ‘he 
sayeth he is hungry.’ 

‘ There is venison and honey and bread in 
plenty,’ said the other. 

‘ A feast for the gods,’ cried the stranger. 

With a sign to him to follow, the girls 
moved away with titterings, whispers, and 
backward glances. They led him for a time 
by the river side, and then diverging plunged 
into a pathway which ran through an under- 
growth with great isolated trees in it. As 
they pursued their road the trees grew 
thicker, and at length the track was over- 
arched by interlacing branches, through 
which the light struck but faintly. Then, 
after ten score yards, they came upon a hill- 
side before which a httle clearing had been 
made, and there against a square face of rock 
a stone hut had been built. At first it seemed 
no more than a projecting nodule from the 
rock, the hand of nature had so covered it. 
Flowering creepers trailed from the low roof 


3s8 one traveller returns 

to the ground, and the interstices of the 
stonework were filled in with mosses, grass, 
and ferns. A screen of wattle covered with 
tanned skins served as a door, but was now 
thrust aside. 

The stranger stood for an instant to look 
at this retired dwelling-place, eyeing it with 
the soldier’s instinct of enquiry, when faint 
and far away a horn sounded a peculiar call. 
The girls turned and listened, and their nev7- 
found guest set a small horn of silver to his 
lips and blew an answer with the same in- 
flections. There was an interval of silence, 
and then the distant call sounded again like a 
perfect echo. He repeated it — awaited the 
answer, which sounded somewhat nearer — 
and again repeated it. Then, as he threw the 
horn back over his shoulder to the position 
from which he had drawn it, a voice spoke 
behind him : 

‘ Eoman 1 What doth a Eoman in Coer- 
lea ? ’ 

He turned, and saw standing in the door- 
way a man of extreme old age, with a pure 
white beard which swept below his girdle. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


259 


and white hair flowing over his shoulders — a 
man of lofty stature, staring straight before 
him with sightless blue eyes. His delicate 
veined hands were stretched a little forward, 
and their gesture was as eloquent of blindness 
as the eyes themselves. 

Varonius — .for it was he — looked at the 
old man with a momentary surprise. Why a 
blind man who had not heard him speak 
should be able to identify his nationality went 
beyond him. 

‘ Roman ? ’ he asked : ‘ why Roman ? ’ 

* I know the call,’ the old man answered 
‘ The call?’ said Varonius. ‘Why should ’st 
think the call to be Roman ? I have dwelt 
in and about Caerlheon these three years, and 
never heard it amongst the soldiery.' 

‘ Hast heard it in Rome,’ the blind old 
man responded, with a touch of scorn at the 
evasion. ‘ It is the call of the Praetorian 
Guard. I know thy cities and their dun- 
geons. What doest here in Coerlea ? ’ 

‘I came hither after the chase,' replied 
Varonius. 

‘ If thou comest for war,’ said the old man 


26 o 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


with a sigh, ‘ my fighting days are over, and 
I can do naught to stay thee. But if thou 
comest for peace art welcome.’ 

‘ I come in peace,’ Varonius replied. 

The call sounded nearer, and he answered 
it yet once more. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


261 


CHAPTER XVin. 

Wenegoq sat in the innermost chamber of his 
dwelling, his head bowed upon his hands, and 
his sandalled feet stirring idly in the pungent 
dust of the floor, where the odorous southern- 
wood carpet, long neglected and unrenewed, 
had fallen into dryness and decay. The 
thoughts of his heart were nauseous to him, 
and by times it seemed that the things that 
had befallen him were too bitter to be true. 
The circle of the gods which had been from 
the beginning and should have stood for ever 
was broken and destroyed, his own child had 
forsaken him, men who had obeyed him from 
their infancy, without so much as daring to 
question, now mocked his authority and de- 
rided him. His soul protested in an impotent 
passion of incredulity, like some wUd beast 
caged, who will not recognise the bars that 
hold him, and breaks himself against them. 


262 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


In the larger chamber were gathered the 
four or five score who followed the fallen for- 
tunes of their chief. These were mainly men 
whom he had but little regarded, but wlio 
were made of unpliable, unyielding stuff, and 
were one and all filled with a sullen rage of 
devotion. They made a motley crowd. All 
were armed to the teeth, and the frailest 
fanatic among them was as ready to fight, if 
but the chance should be given him, as the 
lustiest and youngest. Some of them had 
clamoured to be led against the nation, and 
to strike one despairing blow and die in 
striking it ; but Wenegog, even in the midst 
of his despair, could still muster his politic 
wits, and would not wholly waste the little 
power that was left to him. Sometliing might 
chance — he knew not what. The gods had 
worked miracles in the old days. Why not 
again ? 

One temptation had assailed him often, 
but he had shrunk from yielding to it. The 
aged Coermdalhu, descendant of Coer the son 
of Odan, had never failed in prophecy, and 
could at least lift the veil and show the 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 263 

things that should be. But Wenegog and the 
prophet-bard had parted more than five-and- 
thirty years agone, when the Arch-Druid in 
his cruelty and ambition had claimed Coer- 
mdalhu’s youngest son as a sacrifice to Hest. 
The old man had surrendered the boy unmur- 
muringly, and had given him to the gods in 
absolute faith, but he had never borne to look 
upon the face of Wenegog again. That the 
blood of one of the line of Odan should be 
shed to appease the wrath of an inferior deity 
seemed an outrage to the god of gods, his 
ancestor. He endured it, but he retired from 
communion with men, and dwelt alone until 
the death of his remaining son left two infant 
children to his charge. 

When Temb, the elder of the two, had 
been chosen by Wenegog as one of the ofiiciat- 
ing maidens who had represented the seven 
daughters of There at the mutilated sacrifice 
to Bel, the Arch-Druid had hoped for some 
approach to reconciliation with the aged bard, 
but the strange breaking-off of the ceremony 
had frustrated his desire. 

There was no faintest shadow of doubt 


264 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


in the Druid’s mind that Coermdalhu, if he 
chose, could tell him the ending of his career, 
and he brooded over his own longing until at 
last he could bear with it no longer. He 
would go, and if need were he would kneel to 
know the truth. 

Once resolved he arose, and, facing his 
followers in the larger chamber, told them of 
his decision. 

‘ If he speak of the worst we can but die, 
and if his vision bid us be of courage we will 
live for the gods.’ 

They met him with an instant faitli, and 
the walls of the hollowed rock echoed to their 
cries and the clanking of axe, and spear, and 
shield. He bade a score of them follow him, 
and led the way. 

They marched for the space of six hours, 
and towards nightfall came to the bank of a 
stream, where Wenegog bade them halt and 
went on alone. He had not walked a mile 
when the tones of a low and plaintive music 
reached his ears, and he came upon the 
woodland fastness in which Coermdalhu lived. 
The bard sat at the doorway, unconscious of 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 265 

Wenegog’s presence, his fingers straying amid 
the harp strings, his sightless eyes turned up- 
wards towards the fading flecks of sunlit cloud 
in the west. 

‘ Coermdalhu, child of Odan,’ said Wene- 

gog- 

The old man’s fingers hushed the vibrat- 
ing strings, and he sat with unchanged atti- 
tude. 

‘Who calls?’ 

The Druid’s mind had been much buffeted 
to and fro since the beginning of his journey. 
Now he would surrender all his pride to know 
that which he desired, and now he would dis- 
dain to stoop, even though he should rest in 
ignorance. Even as he spoke he was newly 
resolved upon humility, but at the sound of 
his own voice he woke to a cold and settled 
arrogance. It was still his right to command 
among the faithful. 

‘I, Wenegog, warden for Odan and There,’ 
he answered. 

‘ Why comest thou to me ? ’ the old man 
demanded. ‘ That which thou didst ask was 
given.’ 


266 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


* I spoke but the will of Hest,’ returned 
Wenegog. 

‘ What askest now ? ’ 

‘ The word of the gods. Their will is 
before thee, like signs graven upon a wall, 
which men of learning may interpret. Look 
and see, and tell Avhat thou seest.’ 

His tone was that of command, and not of 
supplication. 

‘ There is naught between thee and me,’ 
Coermdalhu answered. ‘ And I am old, and 
this frail body is no longer a fit abiding place 
for the thoughts of the gods.’ 

He bent his unseeing gaze upon his visitor, 
and once more his hands strayed over the 
harp strings and awaked a subdued and 
mournful music. 

‘The land is accursed,’ cried Wenegog. 
‘ The people are gone after a strange God, 
who will have no sacrifice. The rings of 
the gods are broken, and the axe hath 
been laid to their grove. There is left but a 
handful of tlie faithful. And I, servant of 
Odan, bid thee, servant of Odan : — Smite the 
darkness with the light of thy vision — break 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


267 


open tlie sealed womb of future time, and 
declare the things that are to come. Do the 
gods leave us for ever, or shall we have ven- 
geance of our enemies ? Look and see, and 
speak that thou seest.’ 

The seer’s countenance changed, and he 
sat awhile like one wrapt from the knowledge 
of common things. Then his hands were laid 
upon the harp, and drew out of it a regal 
measure, stately and slow at the beginning, 
but moving quicker as it proceeded, and rising 
at last to a wild and half-discordant storm 
of sound. It fell from this to a low wail of 
supplication and desire, and quavered down 
to silence. Then it rose again more passionate 
and clamorous than before, an ecstasy and 
transport of beseeching. 

The light was fading fast, and ere the 
strain closed the bard’s face was hidden by 
the shadows. His hands fell abruptly in 
the midst of an unfinished cadence, and he 
drooped forward, leaning upon his harp. 
The echo lingered on the trembling, mur- 
muring strings, and died by imperceptible 
degrees. 


a68 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


* What is it thou hast seen ? ’ Wenegog 
asked when he could bear the weight of 
silence no longer. 

‘ Nothing,’ the bard answered him. ‘The 
gods are hidden in darkness.’ 

‘ What voice hath spoken ? ’ 

‘ None. The gods are dumb ! ’ 

‘ Strive again, son of Odan,’ cried the 
druid, falling upon his knees. ‘I commanded 
where I should have prayed. Strive again, 
I kneel before thee who have knelt only to 
the gods.’ 

Coermdalhu smote one chord, and again 
let fall his hands. 

‘ It is dark,’ he said. ‘ It is dark.’ 

Wenegog knelt in an extremity of an- 
guish, and only an accidental touch of the 
old man’s fingers on the strings broke the 
silence. 

'■Farewell, Coermdalhu,’ he said after a 
pause. ‘We were friends ere the voice of 
Hest severed us.’ Stoic as he was, his own 
vast self-pity broke him down, and his voice 
trembled. 

The bard gave him no answer, and he 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 269 

moved away. The forest path lay in dark- 
ness, bnt he paced it mechanically as though 
he were famihar with every turn and winding. 
The murmur of water and the dim gleam of 
the twilight sky reached him together, and 
he sat down upon a rocky ledge above the 
river, and grew deaf and bhnd and empty, 
not caring for anything or thinking of any- 
thing, or being sorry or afraid or weary, but 
falling into that momentary death in life 
which lies in the lowermost gulf of despair. 

How long he sat thus he knew not, but he 
awoke after a time to the sense of hght and 
sound. The moon had risen, and the stream 
glittered in its light. There were voices near 
him, and when his wits took cognisance of 
them he knew that they had been speaking 
there for some time. It was a certain sharp- 
ness and dryness of reproof in one of them 
which startled him awake. The other voice 
answered with an accent of remonstrance. 

‘ ’Twas at thine asking, great Prefect. 
Thou art known already for a Eoman, and if 
thou wert but known for Varonius thy life 
were not worth a drachma.' 


270 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


The speech was couched in Latin, but for 
a moment the hstener was hardly aware of it. 
He was familiar with the language, though he 
knew it best in the mongrel and provincial 
form spoken by the soldiery of Deva and by 
the Lennians who traded with them. 

‘ Here now for two days have we been in 
the heart of the land,’ said the first voice, 
‘ and have learned nothing. We have traced 
neither road nor river. Bethink thee, my 
good Helba. If I had sent thee upon this 
quest, and thou hadst come back to me after 
two days empty of head and hand, I might 
weU have asked thee wherefore. Then if 
thou should’st have answered that a blind 
harper knew thee for a Eoman and fear over- 
came thee, I might have thought ill ahke of 
thy courage and discretion.’ 

‘Leave me to the work, Hlustrious,’ the 
other answered. 

‘ I will see for myself. It is not my way 
to go back. The women hereabouts, if we 
have found but a fair sample, are better 
worth quarrying than the sorry lot we have 
at Deva. That strapping wench — the taller 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


V]\ 


of the two — ^looked not unkindly at me. She 
would be an attraction behind the lattice at 
the Prefectorium.’ 

Here they moved away, and after a pause 
Wenegog stealthily followed until he heard 
the low challenge of a sentinel and the mur- 
mured answer Varonius gave. He could see 
the bivouacked group at a little distance, 
indistinct in the moonlight. 

He saw the answer to all his prayers, the 
fulfilment of his longings. He had but to 
slay this Varonius here on Coerlean ground 
to bring the whole power of Eome in ven- 
geance on the land. The gods had answered 
him. The chastisement of the blasphemers 
was secure, and the people would return to 
their primitive faith, scourged and humbled. 

This idea once conceived seized his whole 
soul. He prowled through the undergrowth, 
and took note of the three sentries who 
guarded the bivouac north, east, and west. 
The little encampment was backed by the 
river, and the south side was already safe and 
needed no watching. 

He knew how hopeless it would be to 


272 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

attack the encampment with the wild and 
untrained forces at his disposal. Whatever 
fanaticism could do his men were equal to, 
but he dreaded the Eoman discipline and the 
Eoman arms. Keen as he was he would ask 
for odds of three to one. He thought of 
Eoedweg and a picked dozen of his band, and 
with them would have ventured anywhere ; 
but Eoedweg was his enemy, and twenty 
miles away. 

Suddenly he bethought him of the ad- 
miration Varonius had expressed for the 
granddaughters of Coermdalhu. He would 
use the giids to decoy the Eoman to his 
destruction. Stealth and cunning should fill 
the place of force. 

He walked back to the stone hut by the 
hillside, and found the blind bard still sitting 
there with his hands resting upon the hai’p 
and his head bowed upon his arms. 

‘ Knowest thou whom thou hast here ? ’ 
he demanded. ‘ Varonius, chief of the Eo- 
mans in Caerlheon ! ’ 

‘ What is tnat to me ? ’ asked the old 


man. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


273 


* I have heard him in speech with another,’ 
said Wenegog. ‘ They are spying out the 
land for a new inroad.’ 

‘ They will fail as they have failed before,’ 
replied Coermdalhu. The intelligence Wene- 
gog brought left him unmoved, but at the 
next speech of the Druid’s he arose, alert and 
alive from head to foot. 

‘ Why wait they here ? They spake of 
Temb and Aelfa.’ 

‘Spake of Temb and Aelfa? In what 
wise ? ’ 

‘ They spake of them as behind the lattice 
at the Prefectorium at Caerlheon.’ 

‘ Said I that my fighting days were over ? ’ 
cried the old bard. ‘ I will slay him with my 
hands. The daughters of Odan play the 
wanton with this outer heathen ? ’ 

‘ Stay,’ said Wenegog. ‘ Let the daughters 
of Odan lead the man who would defile them 
to his doom. A score of my men await hard 
by. Let the girls entice the Eoman, and 
wherever they may lead him one of my men 
shall be ready.’ 

The old man for sole answer struck a 

T 


274 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


chord upon the harp, and one of the girls 
ran from the inner chamber of the hut. 

An hour later Wenegog’s men were posted 
in the wood, and every score yards in a semi- 
circle about the threatened bivouac there was 
a furtive flash of arms. 

A noise of the measured beating of tri- 
angles tinkled on the midnight air. Varo- 
nius lifted his head from its heathy pillow 
and listened. Two voices twined together, 
receded, touched, soared high, soared low. 
Helba, sleeping lightly by his captain’s side, 
awoke at the sound and turned. The two 
kept silence for a time, and then at a pause 
in the hymn Helba spoke. 

‘ They make good music in their invoca- 
tion.’ 

‘ Whom is it they invoke?’ asked Varo- 
nius in a laughing whisper. ‘ Thee and me ? 
These are my water-nymphs of this afternoon. 
I teU thee, Helba, thou shalt not see such 
limbs betwixt Deva and Dorovernium.’ 

He arose and looked in the direction from 
which the sounds proceeded. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


275 


‘Look, Helba,’ he whispered. ‘What are 
thy dancing stalls in Deva now ? ’ 

At but a little distance in the clear broad 
moonlight the two girls danced on the green- 
sward to the music of their triangles and 
their singing. They swayed to and fro with 
a sliding and sinuous grace. 

‘This,’ said Varonius, ‘is too plain an 
invitation to be disregarded. Stay thou here, 
Helba. In a while I will have news for 
thee.’ 

Helba would have restrained him, but 
Varonius turned away with a good-humour- 
edly imperious gesture. As he arose fairly 
to his feet the girls saw him. He advanced, 
and they receded, but so slowly that he came 
near to them. They fluttered to the edge of 
the wood, and then darted into the darkness. 
He saw the white robes flickering in the 
moonlight which fell in glimpses through the 
thick-set foliage, and followed on. The robes 
waved before him, guiding him, and when he 
was a bow shot within the wood, a huge axe 
swung down swift and sure, and clove him to 
the breast bone. 


276 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


The man who had struck the blow raised 
a savage yell which was answered from a 
score of throats, and echoed far and wide 
over rock and stream and forest. 

Helba sprang anew to his feet, and a voice 
cried hoarsely in his own tongue : 

‘You wait Varonius? Seek him here, 
dlo home, and tell how free Ooerlea meets the 
Eoman spy.’ 

The wild cries rose again and again, and 
then dead silence fell. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


277 


CHAPTEE XIX. 

ly the rear of the palace was a pleasaunce 
which owed but little of its charm to ai t. 
Paths had been cut here and there through 
the undergrowth, and in part the place was 
overrun with a wild vine, degenerated from 
shoots which had been brought from Narbon- 
nese Gaul, and vainly planted for the cultiva- 
tion of the grape. Where this growth ceased, 
at the edge of a turfy space, it rose in a wall 
of flaming colour, fine golds and scarlets and 
russet reds, for the year had now come to the 
time when the alchemy of nightly frost and 
daily heat had well begun its miracle of 
change. 

Here below this waU of jewelled mass and 
golden tracery Eel tor gave Wankard a lesson 
in the art of war, Heurtan, armed with a 


278 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


light cudgel, stood up before the boy, and 
warded the puny blows dealt at him. The 
child struck left-handed, and the king with a 
long ghttering blade in his hand showed him 
how to strike and recover. Wankard worked 
with his whole heart, and the little face and 
large dark eyes flushed and flashed with the 
excitement of the mimic contest, till Heurtan, 
watching his royal master rather than his own 
ward, received a blow upon his naked knee. 
Wankard threw down his stick and ran to his 
protector, crying out to know if he had hurt 
him, with an instant solicitude. 

‘ Nay,’ said the dwarf, fondling him. ‘ And 
what if thou hadst? Must learn, and wilt 
have a bufiet or two thyself ere thou art 
master.’ 

‘ Must learn to give and take,’ said the 
king laughingly. ‘ Strike hard, lad, and strike 
not the cudgel only.’ 

Barxelhold stood by, looking on with a 
sadness which had of late grown usual with 
her. Her face was pale, and had lost both its 
sprightliness and its unwomanliness. Feltor 
approached her and laid a hand upon her 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


279 


shoulder whilst he watched the renewed exer- 
cise of the child and his companion. 

‘ ’Twould have grieved me but a while 
ago,’ he said, ‘that the lad should be thus 
pitiful and gentle of heart. He hath courage 
and hardihood enough, and them he hath 
from me, but this pitifulness of heart, it 
cometh ’ 

He stopped short, feeling Barxelhold move 
beneath his hand, and turned to meet her 
eyes. They looked at one another, and the 
thought of the murdered Vi’eda was in the 
mind of each. The shadow of that memory 
came between them often, and pushed them 
apart in a common horror of it, or drew them 
together in a common repentance of it. But 
they knew by now that there was no forget- 
ting it whilst life should last, and the new 
faith shed an awful Hght upon their guilt. 

They exchanged but one glance, which 
meant many things, and then Feltor, with the 
shining blade trailing on the grass, moved 
away, and hid himself with his own thoughts 
in his chamber. Barxelhold remained behind, 
and the boy’s sport with Heurtan, now that 


28 o 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


it had lost the stimulus of his father’s 
presence, grew slack and ceased to interest 
him. 

Barxelhold, with knitted hands and sor- 
rowful eyes bent downwards, walked to and 
fro. Suddenly Vreda appeared, emerging 
from a little alley in the brushwood, and 
Wankard with a cry of pleasure ran dancing 
forward to meet her. All the bounteous 
natural affection of the child’s heart welled 
out to her, and he displayed his love without 
restraint. Since the beginning of her conver- 
sion Barxelhold had made many overtures to 
him, moved by conscience to make some re- 
paration for the rich stores of maternal love 
of which her crime had robbed him ; but 
whether the compunction for her deed showed 
through her tenderness, or some fear of 
him as Vreda’s child laid a chiU upon her 
when she fain would have been kindest, 
she had never found her way to his childish 
heart. 

She had some womanly jealousy of Vreda’s 
influence over him, and knowing her only as 
Kalyris, had begun to hold her own claim 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


sSi 


over the child’s love as stronger than 
Vi'eda’s. 

Vreda spoke, and Barxelhold would not 
answer, but walked up and down the grassy 
space in great torture of spirit. And looking 
unwillingly upon Wankard’s endearments and 
unwillingly listening to his glad prattle, she 
felt more wounded in her own loneliness of 
heart than she could have fancied. And her 
pains of conscience, and the burnings of a 
desire, unsatisfied, denied, and loathed, lying 
within her like a solid core of fire, this 
lesser pain fell upon it as a handful of dry 
twigs and flamed with an exquisite torment, 
so that she could not restrain herself, but 
burst into a sudden rain of tears, and a storm 
of sobs so violent that they set her shaking 
from head to foot. 

‘ Go, good Heurtan,’ said Vreda, ‘ take the 
child away.’ Heurtan obeyed with some back- 
ward glances of curious astonishment. Barxel- 
hold had fallen upon her knees, and the tears 
dripped fast through her fingers. Vreda 
knelt beside her, and setting her arms about 
her drew the weeping woman softly to her 


282 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


breast. But Barxelbold repulsed her passion- 
ately. 

‘ No, no 1 ’ she cried, ‘ Go ! I — I hate 
thee ! ’ 

‘ Wherefore should’st hate me ? ’ Vreda 
asked. ‘ I have done thee no wrong, poor 
heart I And there is naught but love in my 
mind. Thou hatest me not, and shalt not 
hate me, poor suffering soul. Tell me thy 
griefs.’ 

Then Barxelhold clung to her as passion- 
ately as she had repulsed her, and kissed her 
hands with broken words. 

‘ Thou art the kindest — but I — how un- 
worthy I Touch me not. I am not fit for thy 
handling. Nor thy faith. Let me go back.’ 

‘ Whither would’st go ? ’ the sweet voice 
asked her with so infinite a compassion that 
it wounded even whilst it healed. 

‘ To the evil faith of my father. Nay, 
nay I I would not. I am vile altogether. 
Pity me. Leave me not, or I am lost. I dare 
not look at mine own heart.’ 

‘Look, poor child!’ Vreda answered her. 
‘ Lay it bare before Heaven.’ 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


283 


‘ I will teU thee all,’ said Barxelhold, fawn- 
ing upon her in an extremity of love and fear. 
‘All! all!’ 

She ajrose, and wringing the tears from 
her eyes, ran, still shaking with her sobs, from 
side to side of the grassy space, peering into 
every avenue which entered upon it. 

‘ We are alone,’ said Vreda. ‘ Wilt teU 
thy tale only to Heaven and me ? ’ 

Barxelhold fell again upon her knees and 
hid her face in Vreda’s robe. The reclothed 
soul knelt beside her, with hands of pitying 
pardon on her head. 

‘It was ere thou earnest to Coerlea,’ 
Barxelhold began, murmuring in a voice 
scarce audible. Then she looked up wildly 
with clasped hands and streaming eyes. ‘ Wilt 
not betray me ? ’Tis years ago, yet the people 
so loved her they would slay me even now if 
they did but know.’ 

‘ Fear me not,’ said Vreda. 

‘ How should I fear ? Who is there like 
unto thee for goodness ? Oh, my heart, my 
heart ! Wilt hate me, Kalyris, when I have 
told thee I * 


284 ONE TRA VELLER RETURNS 

‘ Nay,’ Yreda answered. ‘ I shall not hate 
thee.’ 

‘ Canst do naught else when I have told thee. 
Yet I cannot live with my breast so burthened 
with this lire. ’Twas ere thou earnest to Coer- 
lea, when Vreda was queen in the land. Thou 
hast heard many speak of her ? * 

‘ Many.’ 

‘ She was well-nigh like to thee for good- 
ness, and lor beauty. When I first saw thee 
I thought of her. ’Twas hke a knife at my 
heart. At first she knew not Feltor, and he 
and I loved one another, and were betrothed 
in secret, none knowing of it. The Eomans 
made war upon Coerlea, and Feltor went 
forth to the wars. He was then but chief of 
his tribe, but Saelmendeg was slain in battle, 
and Feltor commanded in his stead. And 
after a great fight the Eomans were driven' 
from the borders of the land, and Feltor 
came back triumphing and was brought be- 
fore the queen. And Vreda, seeing that he 
was skilful in war beyond his years and of 
goodly stature, loved him, and bade him be 
her husband, and sharp her throne. Then 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


285 


Eeltor seeing power thus offered to him for- 
got me, and wedded the queen. And I know- 
ing this to be, lay awake of nights weeping 
and plotting ways to put poison into her meat 
or wine, that I might have Eeltor back again. 
But I found no way, and they were wedded, 
and I hated the queen. And in awhile Eeltor 
wearied of her, for she was cold, and not 
merry or warm-blooded, and would not sit 
at feast, or take pleasure in the sacrifices to 
the gods. Then came David, and turned her 
from the old faith, and because the people so 
loved her many would have changed with 
her, and my father began to hate her.’ 

All this was broken with weepings, and 
with the sting of the old loss, and momentary 
flashes of the old hate, and new outbursts of 
tears because of it. 

‘ Yea, and I fear me that I hate her still 
sometimes that she took Eeltor away from me, 
and it is thus that I cannot rightly repent me 
of the thing we did. And yet if I repent not 
rightly how shall I hope to be forgiven ? I 
would have loved her had she not stolen 
Eeltor. But in a while he came back to me. 


285 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


and I knew again that he loved me, and that 
he was weary of Vreda. Yet Vreda was ever 
kind to me, and loved me dearly, and was full 
of favours, and I hated her more and more, and 
when it was first spoken of between us that we 
should kill her I rejoiced, knowing that Yeltor 
would be my husband when she was gone.’ 

Now that she came so near to her confes- 
sion the shame and horror of it overwhelmed 
her and she could not speak. She dared to 
look up, and saw that the face of Vreda was 
like the face of an angel, filled with pity and 
love and a most tender and holy joy. And 
at the beauty of it and the pity of it she was 
like to swoon with the pain of her repentance. 

‘ And ye slew her ? ’ said Vreda. 

The only answer was a new burst of weep- 
ing, and a closer clinging of the wild be- 
seeching hands. 

‘ And if thou could’st call lier back again 
and blot out this thing that thou hast done, 
would’st give Feltor back to her ? ’ 

At this test of soul and body Barxelliold 
writhed with a jealous anguish, but her re- 
morse and penitence bore her through. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


287 


*Tea, would 1 1 Yet naught can undo it. 
’Tis done, done, done for ever I * 

‘Now do I,’ said Vreda, ‘in the name of 
God and in the name of the Christ, His 
Son, bid thee go in peace and sin no more.’ 

Then there was a long silence, and Barxel- 
hold’s sobs sank lower and lower until they 
ceased, and only now and again one would 
shake her. When they had died to this, she 
arose, and kissed Vreda’s hands with extreme 
humility, and Vreda drew her to her bosom 
and kissed her upon the forehead. So they 
parted, Barxelhold veiling her face with her 
robe, and stealing to the quiet of her own 
chamber. 

She knelt, unconscious of the passage of 
time, by the side of the couch on which Vreda 
had lain in her last hour. The entrance of 
Feltor stirred her from her prayers and tears. 
She turned, and seeing that he bore a lamp in 
his hand she knew that it was night time. 

He set the lamp in a recess of the wall, 
and looking upon her with a mournful tender- 
ness, unloosed the clasp of his girdle with both 
hands. She stood before him with red eyes 


388 


CATE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


and pale face, unlike herself, quiet and re* 
solved. 

‘ Thou and I will lie side by side no more, 
Feltor. Go to thine own chamber. ’Twa* 
for our own lusts we slew her, and we may 
not keep the prize of our blood*guiltiness.’ 

He reached out his hahds towards her, 
but she did not move. 

‘ Farewell,’ he said with a broken voice. 
* Farewell.’ 

She gave him the hands his imploring 
gesture asked for. He embraced her and 
kissed her upon the forehead, as Vreda had 
kissed her, and went his way. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


2S9 


chaptee 

Treda began to know that her mission came 
near to its accomplishment, for the whole 
land was turned, and Wenegog and his rem- 
nant had betaken themselves to mountain 
fastnesses, shaking the dust off their feet 
against the Christians. Hanun worked among 
the people with an energy equal to David’s 
own, exhorting, teaching, visiting the sick, 
and translating to the Coerlean tongue . the 
sacred memories which the old saint had left 
behind him. Yreda wrought beside him in 
so warm a contentment that the pains and 
weights of the flesh were almost as nothing to 
her, but it was borne more and more upon 
her that the end of her sojourn was drawing 
nigh. 

It came to pass one day that she had been 
upon an errand of goodneis to the widow of 


290 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


a woodsman who dwelt in a hut upon the 
side of that headland where the cairn had 
been built to the memory of the queen ; and 
although she was an hour’s journey from the 
cairn, and greatly weary, she had a desire to 
see it, and so walked thither, and looked upon 
the jewels with which her body had been 
decked at her funeral. They lay there un- 
disturbed, for an awe still lived about the 
spot, and except for herself and David, none 
had ventured so much as to look upon what 
had been her resting-place. 

Here were the marks of that boundary 
which she had passed and repassed, and must 
pass yet again ere long. And in looking upon 
them she felt alone, and in her mind familiar 
faces grew far-off and strange. She had no 
fellow in the world, and a longing swept 
through her like the rushing of a wind to 
proclaim the secret of her history. From the 
time of her coming back she had been like 
one who sits heavily fettered in a narrow 
prison-house, walled from free air and all in- 
timacies of affection, with only her own 
tho4^hts for her companions. And now, re- 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


291 


membering all she had resigned, she felt her 
body weigh upon her like a mountain, and 
would willingly have been liberated from it 
by any rending of the flesh. Eecalling the 
unutterable pangs of death, she yearned for 
them. 

But when this had endured for a time, 
and she had fallen to a dull anguish of the 
mind against which she had no power to 
struggle, she found that she was looking on 
the sea, which slumbered in an autumn mist 
of dusk below. It lay, reaching beyond her 
knowledge or the knowledge of any — vast, 
limitless, asleep, and the murmur of its slum- 
bers broke upon her ear with a strange voice 
of peace. Then looking at her feet she 
beheld a little pool in the hoUow of a stone, 
and the wind fretted it. 

‘ Frettest thyself,’ she said, ‘ and the great 
deep lyeth still ! ’ 

Then suddenly her pains were as less than 
nothing, and the ills of life were nothing, and 
the solid earth whereon she stood was no 
more than a grain of dust, and the time of 
her suffering less than the fretful cup of water 


292 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

at her feet, and the glory that shoxild be was 
wider and deeper than that unbounded deep. 

Being thus re-comforted she knew that 
she had not been brought here in vain, and 
returning to the hut of the woodsman she 
watched by the sick woman until nightfall. 
Then desiring again to be alone with her own 
soul she went out intO' the darkness ; and, 
behold ! from hill to hill before her beacon 
fires were flaming, and even as she looked 
they flashed up left and right, burning on 
the crown of every eminence like red stars of 
war. 

She knew that these fires portended war, 
and could mean naught else, yet how war 
should have befallen in a day she could not 
guess. Even as she looked, a new beacon 
blaze sprang up near at hand, and she could 
see the figures of the men who moved about 
it. She hastened to them, and asking of one 
who came racing towards her what was the 
reason of the fires, received for sole answer a 
panting breath — ‘ The Eomans ’ — as he shot 
past her. She knew that rhe Eomans could 
come only from Deva, and there was but one 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


293 


road their army coiil'i. take to reach the fords 
of the Coerlwid, Thither she bent her steps. 

In the grey light of dawn she stood with 
Barxelhold, Feltor, and Eoedweg upon a broad 
craggy platform overlooking the pass in which 
the Coerlean troops were rapidly assembling. 
Feltor and Eoedweg consulted on the dispo- 
sition of the battle. A band of active young 
chieftains waited at a little distance to receive 
and carry orders. The valley was black with 
the massed warriors, and towards the central 
lake of men poured tributary streams from 
each hillside, marching with wild shoutings to 
the dissonant sound of horns. Beyond the 
mouth of the pass groups of skin-clad horse- 
men scoured the plain in all directions. The 
sun had already risen, but the valley was still 
sombre with the shadow of the hills. Sud- 
denly, far and far away, there was a flashing 
of thousands of tiny gleams of light. The 
diamond glitter twinkled in the valley, and on 
the crest of the hill beyond, and played in a 
swift interchange with shadow in the black- 
ness of the pine wood. Feltor stretched out 


294 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


a hand towards the distant brightness and 
turned to Koedweg. 

‘ Hither they come ! * 

‘ Ay,’ said Eoedweg stolidly, ‘ hither they 
come. Good fighting-stuff. They scrape the 
hair from their faces and polish their cheeks 
with stone to look womanly, but they fight 
like men.’ 

There was a huge satisfaction in Eoedweg’s 
mind, for he had feared lest the new faith 
should be the death of fighting, and he felt 
more kindly than common to the Eomans. 

The distant glitter grew nearer and nearer, 
and the Eoman cavalry deployed from the 
pine wood and came upon the plain, a com- 
pact mass of shining steel. The mounted 
Coer lean scouts went circling before them, 
now and then making audacious rushes at the 
advancing column, but always wheeling and 
retiring ere they came to harm. 

‘ Eoedweg,’ said the king, ‘ no man can 
say who may come out of this. If I fall thou 
shalt have charge of all things under Barxel- 
hold. And having always found thee good 
man and true, I know thou wilt be still good 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 295 

man and true, for at thy years the nature of 
a man changeth not because he cometh to 
power. Guard my child, I pray thee, that 
when he is of an age to rule he may do justice 
and be merciful. Be thy strength a prop to 
the queen’s weakness. And now ere the fight 
begin we will go down, and I will speak my 
mind before the chieftains, that there may be 
no doubt hereafter as to the things I desired 
before my death.’ 

Now the Eoman infantry emerged from 
the pine wood, and deployed across the plain 
in echelons of cohorts, in striking contrast, as 
even Feltor and Eoedweg could feel, to the 
turbulent mob of the Coerleans. Seen from a 
distance the open order they took detracted 
nothing from the massive aspect of their 
forces, whilst it added greatly to their appa- 
rent numbers. The cavalry drew up on the 
right of the evident line of battle, facing the 
front of the pass, ready to stay pursuit or 
assist in attack as the fortune of the day 
might determine. The men sat like a regi- 
ment of statues, in stolid indifference to the 
wheeling.® and shoutings of the wild Coerlean 


296 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

horsemen, "who buzzed about them like a 
cloud of hornets. 

As the enemy drew nearer Feltor and his 
chieftains became aware that they would have 
not only to encounter the Eomans, but legions 
of Lennians and Caernabians, the former dis- 
tinguishable by a metal cap- shaped helmet 
worn with an otherwise British dress, and the 
latter by their shields of red ox-hide. The 
Roman slingers and archers were thrown out 
in clouds, and were at once encountered by 
Coerleans of the same arms, who had lain 
concealed behind every rock and bush and 
inequality of the ground. 

* The fight begins,’ said Feltor. He called 
for his horse, and bade Eoedweg accompany 
him. Then before he mounted he spoke to 
Barxelhold, gravely and calmly. At his call 
a page took him by the foot and helped him 
to the bare back of his steed. Eoedweg 
mounted also, and they galloped down the 
hillside together. 

Behind a craggy and almost inaccessible 
natural breastwork, higher than the rocky 
shelf on which Vreda and Barxelhold rested, 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


297 


and a little to its r<-ar, crouched Wenegog 
■with his remnant of the priesthood. He had 
full sight of the field of battl«, and awaited 
with an actual greed of impatience the victory 
of the Eoman arms. No matter what missile 
•were employed, it was the hand of the gods 
that hurled the punishment in answer to their 
servant’s works and prayers. His followers 
waited in another mood, not knowing the 
secret of his mind. They had not understood 
his cry in Latin on the night of the murder 
of Varonius, and were too little subtile in 
their thoughts to plot the punishment of one 
enemy by the hands of another. That the 
Romans should set foot upon Coerlean soil 
was to them as hateful a conception as that 
their own people should desert the gods. 
They waited for the moment when Wenegog 
should lead them against the common enemy, 
and did not dream that he would exert his 
authority to restrain them. 

Wenegog, spying between the boulders, 
saw the more disciplined advance of the 
Eoman skirmishers drive the Coerlean shngers, 
archers, and horsemen to the hiUs, and tasted 


298 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

the forethoughts of victory. He saw the first 
cohort of auxiliaries, flanked by skirmishers, 
roll up to the black dense line of the defen- 
ders, and heard the noise of the shoutings, 
and saw the flashing of arms, and the waver- 
ing of the front, and the dead and wounded 
laid in swathes. Then for one mad minute, 
and no more, the red ox-hide shields and the 
shining caps were all mingled and broken up 
with the black and grey head-dresses and the 
white limbs and flashing weapons of the 
Coerleans, and the advance fell back in wild 
confusion, only to be stayed by the march of 
the stern cohort in the rear. 

The eagle gleamed on high, and the line 
before it and the lines behind moved forward 
slowly and relentlessly — pursuers and pur- 
sued recoihng before it in a mutual slaughter, 
but the Lennians and Caernabians were panic- 
stricken, and — walled between the advance 
of their support and the masses of the enemy 
— were cut to pieces, save for the few who 
passed through the seemingly unbreakable 
open formation which Boman discipline pro- 
vided for the easier escape of a defeated first 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


299 


advance. Wenegog ground his teeth at this, 
but the Roman mettle had yet to be tried, 
and the time was here. The lines were face 
to face, and from the distance at which he 
watched they seemed to touch, when the 
great javelins shone and flew as if one hand 
had thrown them all. Then with a ringing 
crash the two lines met, and the Coerleans 
yelling and fighting hard dropped back, foot 
by foot. Then they stood, and the scales of 
the battle hung in the balance, and drooped 
slowly to the other side, and the Romans went 
back foot by foot, till in a while the contend- 
ing forces climbed a wall of dead to reach 
each other, and fought at the top of it. 

Whilst he watched all this a hand was 
laid upon his arm and one of his men pointed 
down a ravine to the right. There was a 
flash of Roman arms, and the men climbed 
steadily towards the platform on which Vreda 
and Barxelhold stood surrounded by their 
guard. Line after line passed the crest and 
defiled into plain sight, and still more fol- 
lowed as though the hill had gaped to dis- 
gorge them. From the rock on which the 


300 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


queen and her escort were placed this new 
and dangerous advance was invisible, but 
Wenegog saw what must happen, and was 
torn by his own thoughts. The Eomans had 
planned to strike the C(/erlean army in the 
rear, and he rejoiced in the chance of the 
stratagem’s success But on their way they 
would at the least seize his child, and there 
was the dread lest she should be slain in the 
confusion of the resistance her escort would 
offer. Had Vreda been alone his satisfaction 
would have been without alloy, but some 
living nerves of nature still stretched from 
him to Barxelhold, and now these tugged at 
him with a force which almost constrained 
him to cry out and warn her of her danger. 

Meantime his men, nothing doubting that 
he would lead them to his child’s protection, 
wondered and waited for the word, d’he 
snake-like stream of the stealthy advance 
contracted and grew wider, and its head had 
just peered over the rock on which the queen 
and her party stayed when it was beheld by 
one of her guard, who instantly raised a 
shout which drew all eyes from the raging 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


301 


battle down below and strung all hearts to 
immediate combat here. The first line of the 
Eoman soldiery fell, and one or two of the 
bodies were thrown clean from the edge, 
striking upon projections of the rock and 
leaping from point to point until they dropped 
into the brushwood half-way ’down and there 
were hidden. But the next line pushed up 
after them, and another made a detour of _^the 
rock, and yet another swarmed down from 
the top 01 it until the platform was alive with 
men. The struggling throng was so thickly 
crushed together that there was no space for 
the swing of the battle-axe or the long Coer- 
lean sword, and the deadly Eoman glaive did 
its work with awful swiftness. 

Even till now the Druids had burned for 
their leader’s word, and not hearing it, rose 
to their feet at the first cry of wrath and hate 
that sounded amongst them. They dashed 
headlong down the hillside axe in hand, and 
fell upon the invader with such a shock that 
the steel-clad line wavered and broke before 
it. It closed again at the calm cry of the 
centurion, and when the first surprise was 


303 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


over the fanatical courage of the priests had 
no chance against the skill and discipline of 
the soldiers. The Druids were cut down to a 
man, and Wenegog, standing on the edge of 
the parapet above, screaming commands and 
curses, was struck through the throat by an 
arrow, and lea'ping high fell sideways over 
the steepest face of tlie hill. 

Vreda and Barxelhold, already pinioned, 
saw his fall. Feltor, flying upwards to their 
rescue followed by a cloud of horsemen, saw 
it also. From the very thickest of the fight 
he had seen the flank movement of the Eo- 
mans. It came from a point where he had 
believed his own forces to be fortified by 
nature, and he was mad to think that he had 
left his wife and Vreda in danger. The way 
was rough and difficult, and though he urged 
his horse with hand and foot and voice, and 
the beast strained his utmost powers in answer 
to the triple call, he feared that he would 
reach the place too late. He could not guess 
what the Eoman strength at this spot might 
be, but he would not have paused an instant 
if he had ridden single-handed to charge the 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


303 


whole of the invading power. An arrow 
struck his horse between the eyes, and steed 
and rider hurtled to the ground together. As 
Feltor rose to his feet one of his own chiefs 
swerved lest he should trample upon him, 
and at that instant fell, struck by a stone 
from a sling. Feltor seized the horse, re- 
mounted, and rode on. He saw Barxelhold 
and Vreda hurried from the crag to the 
mountain torrent-bed by which the surprise 
had travelled, and with half-a-dozen of the 
young chieftains of his horsemen hard upon 
his heels, tore upwards amid a shower of 
stones and arrows. Then he wms in among 
them, raining great blows on every side. At 
each stroke a man went down, but his horse 
fell pierced by many wounds, and he himself, 
struck by a blow which sent the regal cir- 
clet ringing and spinning from his brows, lay 
silent and unconscious. 

‘ The king I ’ cried the officer who had 
dealt the blow. ‘ Take him away. Send him 
to Deva with the women.’ 

The helpless form was lifted to the shoul- 
ders of three men and borne hastily away 


304 ONE TRA''ELLER RETURNS 

under the escof of the same guard which 
had charge of Vreda and Barxelhold. 

Meantime the battle raged at the mouth 
of the pass, and was fought on either side 
with unstinted valour. Old Eoedweg, with 
white face blood-besmeared, and great shining 
eyes and teeth close^ set, fought with a grim 
joy no change of creed could alter. He had 
been wounded twice, and had twice been 
down upon the heaps of dead and dying, so 
that he was blood from head to foot, and his 
hands stuck to the haft of the axe he wielded. 
Even the staunch Eoman learned to dread 
him, and where he came, with the whirling 
axe making lightnings about him, many a 
man shrank who had never yielded an inch 
in fight till then. He had cried his last battle- 
cry for that day, for he had gone dumb with 
hours of shouting, but he was none the less 
terrible for his silence. 

The fight hung in doubt for a while, but 
the bone and sinew and weight of the savage 
mountaineers and huntsmen at last beat down 
the Eoman arms and disciphne. The eagle 
of the Legion of the Victorious was borne 


ONE TRAVEI-LER RETURNS 305 

rearward, yet no man turned his back. But 
the tide of victory flowe(l eastward and 
southward with scarce a check. Suddenly 
young Elangor, Eoedweg’s son, wounded 
and on a wounded horse, came galloping 
from the crag where Feltor had been taken 
prisoner. 

‘Coerleans,’ he shouted in a voice which 
pierced the din of battle, ‘ revenge your king 
and queen.’ 

There rose a yell in answer to this call, 
and the savage forces dashed forward with a 
rush so terrible that the stubborn defence 
broke and scattered before it. For a mere 
minute or two the plain beyond the pass was 
filled with the flying Eomans, but then the 
stern discipline and indomitable spirit which 
had made half the world their own spoke out 
again. They formed anew, and faced pursuit 
with an aspect so resolute and steady that the 
Coerlean leaders, warned by the experience 
of earlier conflicts in the open, called their 
bandogs ofi*, and dropped back surhly into 
their own fastnesses. 

And whilst the defeated legion marched 

X 


3o6 


OAE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


sullenly back, leaving one-third of their num- 
ber dead or dying on Coerlean soil, a chariot, 
guarded by a score of Eoman horsemen, bore 
Vreda, Barxelhold, and the wounded Feltor 
swiftly towards Deva. 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


307 


CHAPTER XXI. 

In the cool of a May evening a company of 
ladies and gentlemen of Rome strolled under 
the guidance of the chief gaoler through the 
arches of the Coliseum. They were all people 
of distinction, and their bearing was marked 
by a fine impertinence and indifierence. They 
were animated and voluble about trifles which 
touched themselves, and exquisitely languid 
and unconcerned with regard to the prisoners 
who were the next day to be given to the 
lions. They came to see because R was the 
mode, and because the spectacle was only 
open to distinguished people. It was a task 
ordained by fashion, and only a few were in- 
experienced and young enough to take an 
open pleasure in it. 


xS 


308 ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

* These, Patrician,* said the gaoler, pausing 
before a grating, ‘ are the servants of the good 
Cams Marcius.’ 

The assembled ladies and gentlemen be- 
came interested, and crowded somewhat one 
upon another to look at a suUen group of 
negroes huddled together behind the bars. 

‘ They burned him in his villa,’ said one. 

‘ The action was meritorious,’ said another, 
yawning behind his hand, ‘but the motive 
was mistaken. They burned him because he 
flogged them something too often. Now had 
they burned him for writing those execrable 
comedies their judgment in letters would have 
earned all good men’s praises.’ 

The interest in the negroes soon wore itself 
out, and the straggling procession passed on. ■ 

‘ I am not one of the praisers of old days,’ 
said the exquisite who had last spoken, ‘ but I 
remember my respectable father telling how 
the most sweet-natured Emperor Domitian, of 
gentle memory, burned some two hundred at 
the stake and threw some two hundred to the 
beasts on the same day Now we have fallen 
to sixty-three for a day’s sport.’ 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


309 


‘These, most noble Claudius,’ said the 
gaoler, pausing at another arch, ‘ are Chris- 
tians.’ 

‘ Poor wretches ! ’ answered the noble Clau- 
dius. ‘I used half to pity them, but their 
teaching has proved most mischievous.’ 

Nobody seemed to be impressed by the 
Christians, and two or three yawned openly. 

‘ These,’ said the gaoler, again pausing, 
‘are the assassins of the Prefect Yaronius.’ 

Here once more the interest brightened, 
and the ladies, amongst whom Yaronius had 
been a favourite, pressed forward almost with 
eagerness. 

‘What has our most sublime emperor 
decided ? ’ asked Claudius, 

‘ They are thrown to- the beasts to-morrow. 
Magnificent,’ replied the gaoler. 

The crowd pressed and stared and chatted 
and went by. 

Yreda turned to her companions with a 
look of heavenly happiness. 

‘ Here, at length,’ she said, ‘is the end of all 
our sorrows.’ 

Barxelhold looked up with a pale and 


»io O.'IE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

frightened smile, and creeping nearer to her 
laid hold of her hand and fondled it. Vreda 
kissed her, still smiling with a calm unflicker- 
ing radiance. Feltor, with his wide shoulders 
leaning against the brickwork of the wall, 
looked down upon them with folded arms and 
dreamy eyes. 

‘ I would I were sure of things at home,’ 
he said at length. ‘ Canst tell me how they 
go, Kalyris ? ’ 

‘ If aught is shown to me,’ she answered, 
* I will tell thee.’ 

When they had rested in silence for a time, 
and the balmy darkness had fallen about 
them, one of the gaolers of the lower sort 
came with slaves, who bore loaves of bread 
and earthenware jars of water. The man 
thrust the torch he carried between the bars 
and looked at the prisoners. A slave entered 
the cage, laid down a jar and a loaf and 
retired without a word. The light and the 
voices died away. 

Vreda spoke. 

‘Let us eat and drink together for the 
last on earth, dear companions. To-morrow 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 31 1 

we shall eat of the fruit of the tree of 
God, and drink of the water of the river of 
life.’ 

So the bread was broken, and they ate 
together in silence. Every now and again 
they heard the howling of the beasts in the 
arches near at hand. 

‘ I would,’ said Eeltor, ‘ that I had but 
one of the glaives these Eomans carry. I 
would fain die like a man.’ 

‘Hast looked death’s eyes down many a 
time, Eeltor,’ said Barxelhold in a trembhng 
voice. ‘ For me, I am afeared, but I am but a 
woman. I am aweary, Kalyris, of the sins 
wherein I fall. I am aweary of these bonds 
of flesh which hold me down, these snares 
of flesh that trip my feet. And by times 
my soul is strung out of its own weariness, 
and I cry out for death, and by times I 
tremble.’ 

‘The body trembleth, feeling the doom that 
shall befall it ; but the soul is steadfast, seeing 
that which hes before. And save for thine 
own comfort I would not even bid thee be 
of courage. For there is nothing now to be 


3 « ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

counted between courage and dread, save 
that dread suflereth a thousand times, and 
courage but once.’ 

‘ Many have I seen awaiting death,’ said 
Feltor, ‘ but never one like thee.’ 

‘ Many have met death within these 
walls,’ she answered, ‘ as happy and as calm 
as I am now, and many more will meet 
him here in such a joyful surety as our 
own.’ 

The sweet voice paused in the darkness, 
and went on again with a glad calm. 

‘ The Eoman will go no more to Coerlea, 
nor the heathen vex its borders. Odan and 
There and Bel are dead, and where the shadow 
of their terror lay dwells the peace of he 
Cross. I see Hanun and Wankard glad but 
for their grief for us. I see Eoedweg ruling 
justly to the fulness of his time. I see Wan- 
kard, a good king, ruling over a happy land. 
I see Hanun with his holy hope fulfilled. I 
see temples rising to the God of mercy and 
long-suffering everywhere, and the temples to 
the false gods of cruelty and oppression every- 
where crumbling to the dust. I see the little 


ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 


313 


land that gave us birth grown chief among the 
kingdoms of the world, and over it the star of 
peace. 

The wild beasts howled. 

At early dawn two gaolers broke upon the 
peaceful sleep of Vreda and her companions. 
They entered the cage, and one of them un- 
locked the bar which secured the doors lead- 
ing to the open arena. Then each set his 
shoulder to a door and rolled it back. The 
tranquil morning light and the fresh morning 
air came like a double greeting, and the three 
awakened, looked out on the vast oval of the 
arena and the terraced rows of empty seats 
and the pale sky beyond, with one star 
shimmering in its depths. 

‘ They run smooth enough,’ said one of 
the gaolers, and clanging the doors together 
again, and fastening them anew, they de- 
parted. 

The morning wore on and the light broad- 
ened until even where they sat they could 
see the flecks of sunshine on the corridor 
beyond their bars. Then the murmurs of a 
crowd were heard without, a multitudinous 


SM ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS 

hum, with a shriek or call, or burst of 
laughter strangely clear in the midst of it. 

The morning wore on still, and the mur- 
murs swelled and swelled. Then came a 
burst of martial music, hailed by thunders on 
thunders of applause. Then silence, and 
again the howling of the beasts. 

The gaolers came again, with guards in 
their train. They rolled the doors back 
cautiously, and the guards thrust the victims 
into the arena. The doors closed with a 
clang. Far off at the extreme limit of the 
arena the wild creatures prowled, and Barxel- 
hold threw herself with a cry at Vreda’s feet. 

‘ Have no fear,’ said Vreda, ‘ I have passed 
the gates of death before.’ 

‘ Thou ? ’ 

‘ I am Vreda, whom ye slew.* 

• • • • . • « 

The beasts came bounding across the sand. 
The vast white ring of faces flashed and 
darkened, and heaven opened radiant. 


THE END. 


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